Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage
by PhiLLy
Summary: Chapter 9: Captain Mayhem is sucked into a psychic nightmare and Trinity finds herself on the business end of his claws. Can the two find some way to save themselves and what is in store for the rest of Paragon City? Rough draft, please read and review.
1. Episode 1: The Arrival part 1

Note:This is a fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhem is themain character othersfrom my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty will will appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villians... although if I did I'd have some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that's some major bank. To be honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kind of depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention to time spent of getting him to level 50... but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn't reflect the gameplay or story in any way... just the fictionaladventures of a character I made in amassively multiplayer onlineworld... does that make it a fictional account of actual events?

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Captain Mayhem and The Preventors of Carnage 

Episode 1: Arrival part I

After finally exiting the taxi just outside of Freedom Corps in Galaxy City, Captain Mayhem had decided on one thing and one thing only: this was unlike anywhere he had ever seen. Statues of fallen heroes stood hundreds of feet in the air symbolizing the sacrifices they had made to their city, country, even galaxy in some cases, and the appreciation the citizens had for those sacrifices. He looked up in awe at the Statue of Galaxy Girl, her arms high in the air, and she almost seemed to be flying. After finally regaining his composure he reached into his pocket and attempted to pay the fare, but the cab driver quickly stopped him, "Hey... I know what you are. I'm dropping you off in front of Freedom Corps in that getup and you expect me to charge? You might be saving my life soon, no way. Just make sure keep yourself alive out there you hear?"

Although not knowing what was meant by "that getup" while re-observing the red and white costume he had designed and purchased from Image Inc. the soon to be hero simply smiled at the gesture and returned his wallet to his pocket as he leaned on to the passenger side window and shook hands with the friendly cabby. "No problem on my part, just make sure I get one of these statues one day." The cabby simply grinned back before wishing the new hero good luck and pulling off. In the back of his mind he wondered if the guy that just left his cab really could end up being immortalized with a giant statue of his own one day... naa, how great could he be if he had to catch a cab in the first place.

But he wasn't the only one thinking that. Captain Mayhem stood at the door to the building wondering the same thing. He was about to follow in the footsteps of the some of greatest heroes the world has ever known, would he come to be great in his own right or just some street level hero lost in a sea of capes, flashy costumes and fancy gadgets? Essentially he would be nothing if he couldn't get past his anxiety and make it through the door. A figure not much taller than his and of about the same build was approaching from the other side of the door and at one glance seemed to know exactly what to say, "Hey, you can't be a hero if you don't register, get moving!"

And before Cap could say anything they were gone in a puff of bright light... hmph, teleporters. He didn't know whether his face reflected his feelings that much or if his encourager read his mind... but they said exactly what he needed to hear. After shaking off what remained of his doubts Captain Mayhem pushed open the doors to the Freedom Corps building and was completely unamazed by the scenery. For all it's hype the building was no more amazing than any office building in New York City.

He looked around and spotted several Longbow on patrol (who's costumes, which by accident, very closely resembled his) around the building as well as several other various heroes (or so he guessed) moving out and about. He spotted a sign over a desk which he read as "registry" and felt the knots tighten in his stomach as he moved towards it. After finally approaching a rather normal looking man in a blue suit who looked absolutely bored he stood there for a few seconds not exactly sure what to do. After a few seconds of awkwardness the man looked up at him with a bored look.

"Can I help you sir?" The man said completely void of enthusiasm. Cap froze for a few moments before remembering what to say.

"Uhh... yeah, I'm here to register."

The man routinely punched some keys on the computer in front of him before asking, "Name of the Super Group please?" By this point Cap was completely lost as thoughts of the Freedom Phalanx, Dawn Patrol and others danced through his head. Noticing the confusion of this obviously green hero the man simply pointed up towards the sign where Captain Mayhem had managed not to see "_Super Group_" prominently hovering over registry. The man returned to his world of perpetual boredom leaving the hero to figure things out for himself. Not seeing anywhere else to go Captain Mayhem finally exited the building, a feeling of failure overpowering all others. He sat on the steps of the Freedom Corps building for a few seconds unsure of what to do. As he thought memories from his past began to flow through his mind...

He remembered growing up a mutant in a not so mutant friendly environment. He probably wouldn't have had so many problems had it not been for the eye he had protruding from his forehead drawing so much attention. It wasn't easy being one of the only "different" kids in his neighborhood because when you live in the slums kids are always looking for entertainment... and a guy with three eyes is just the stuff to make for a good show. There was a point where he felt like he had to fight almost every time he went outside because no matter what time of day, no matter where he went it seemed like he was shadowed by kids wanting a piece of the "freak". Luckily for him though, no matter how bad the fights, no matter how serious his injuries appeared, he never stayed hurt for very long. Even after breaking an arm after being pushed out of a second floor window at school he was able to attend gym class the following week. Even his parents didn't know what to make of it.

One day though a local gang of low powered thugs decided it was time they take over the neighborhood. They basically shut off communication to the world, and outside of their little city no one knew what was going on. They controlled power, food, water, and most importantly for them, money. For almost a week they held the entire city hostage as because of it being such a bad area, there was hardly any press coverage until one of the hostages managed to swim through the bay to the next town and alerted the authorities.

Almost immediately the news was all over radio and television... soon after a small band of heroes flew into town and the battle was fierce. Although none of them were very powerful the gang had deep numbers and the group of heroes was unprepared... through the help of some locals, including an 11 year old Cap they were able to incapacitate the leaders and without the brains behind the operation things soon returned to normal with one exception... they no longer saw him as a freak. His courage had earned him a reputation as a "little hero" and Captain no longer had to worry about bullies. But that was before he started "feeling things". He wasn't too sure about it but he was pretty sure his third eye had some kind of powers to it. Sometimes he would see things... things that weren't really there... or it would point to a person who would eventually help shape him in some major way. And before the claws... waaay before the claws. The first time they popped out really freaked him.

He had just woken up and was walking around groggily when his back started to itch. He tried and tried but he just couldn't reach it. Suddenly his third eye twitched and he felt a serious pain throughout his whole arm and a funny feeling where the itch had been. He moved his hand to where he could see it and found three, one foot long metal claws covered in blood sticking out from his hand. His initial reaction was somewhere between "What the fuck" and "Something's wrong with me" before flat out panicking. His mother heard him yelling and came rushing in along with his younger brother who also had the third eye. Her initial reaction after seeing him standing over a pool of his own blood with blood covered claws and a gash going down half of his back that was already healing itself was somewhere between "Not again" and "What's happening to my baby". Between him and his brother who had a knack for "just being around" when something spontaneously combusted she had been through a lot, but with the evidence in front of her she could only assume he was trying to kill himself. After asking what he had done to himself the future hero stumbled through the details giving her a full view of what happened.

After painfully finding a way to work the claws back into his arm they got him to a hospital where they had to fly in a specialist from Paragon to diagnose him. As it turns out his blood stream had produced an abnormal amount of iron... and the only way his body could counter this was by having his bones absorb it. After years it finally condensed into a solid metal not only producing three claws in each hand, but also coating his entire skeleton with it. But amazingly his body was still able to function normally, this was apparently attributed to the unknown properties of his third eye.

Sitting on the steps of Freedom Corp he almost laughed thinking about that. Although they had a rough start his claws had eventually become his best friends... handy when needed but extremely dangerous... he had even gone as far as visiting a sword smith in Japan to maximize the usefulness as well as receiving training in how to wield them. They hurt at first, a lot in fact, each and every time he'd either push them out or retract them into his arm. But eventually his body found a solution, each claw seemed develop it's own little sheath of muscle, separated from the normal functions of the arm and completely isolated. If he didn't know any better he'd say his body optimized itself... but knowing what he did he knows that's exactly what happened. Although there's still some tearing of flesh each time he uses them the damage is minimal... but if he leaves them out too long it does seem to hurt a little.

Finally deciding he had to find something to do he promptly walked down the stairs of Freedom Corp and onto the street heading nowhere in particular. He was able to raise enough money for his training, trip to Paragon, and one month's rent on a small apartment but besides being a hero he didn't know what else to do. He walked down the streets almost lost before hearing a woman's voice yell out "Help! Someone Please Help!" His third eye had already locked in the direction of the woman and he was moving swiftly; and although he could probably run as fast as most Olympic sprinters it was nowhere near super speed and didn't feel fast enough.

After arriving on the scene he found four Hellions one with a bat and one with spikes sticking out of his head surrounding a seemingly helpless woman. She lay on the ground as the normal looking (or as normal as things get in Paragon) three looked to the other for directions. Not taking time to think Captain Mayhem stepped into the alley and immediately drew their attention. "Damn, we got tights. Is it a longbow?" Asked one of what they call Blood Brothers Choppers. "Naa" replied the one with horns sticking out of his head, "the costume ain't right, just some fresh asshole about to be raped." He stared down Captain Mayhem as he snapped his fingers and a flame appeared flickering over his thumb.

"You'll have to do a hell of a lot better than that." Captain Mayhem said as he thought about the time he spent training with his fire controlling and generating brother. The horned menace tossed a decent sized ball of fire at Captain Mayhem who expertly dodged it and wasn't impressed a bit. He kept his claws under wraps and simply knocked out the first two Choppers with his metal laced knuckles as the fire generating thug summoned a stream of liquid fire which slightly missed Cap but managed to melt through parts of the brick wall that it did hit.

Captain Mayhem looked at the damage that had been done to the wall and quickly, and reluctantly, remembered the day his brother discovered his powers. While playing around his brother generated a rain of fire which burned 60 percent of Cap's body. Even with his healing ability that was an unpleasant experience and thinking that someone would want him to go through that again completely pissed him off. He suddenly forgot about everything except for the one who tried to do this to him and dove at his attacker.

The Hellions have three levels of rank within their group. The lowest is composed of new recruits who have only gone as far as taking a life and completing a ceremony where they ritualistically cut themselves to unleash their inner potential. The next two ranks are achieved through varying levels of crime in which some of the darkest sides of humanity are tapped into to make themselves stronger. The lower of the two levels are called The Fallen with the strongest, most battle tested and those tapped the deepest into the hellfire in which they draw their powers called the Damned.

Now although he had always prided himself on being one of these elite it wasn't until he ran into Captain Mayhem that he truly understood what it was to feel damned... because although Cap still withheld his claws, after the first punch the Horned One was pretty sure several ribs had been shattered... the second one felt like fireworks had gone off in the right side of his jaw and by the third punch he learned that his nose bone poking into his skull was a feeling he would never grow comfortable with. Although it wasn't until he had awoken in a Paragon City Hospital surrounded by police hardly able to breath that he remembered it all in detial, as his unconscious body fell to the ground and his only walking Blood Brother fled for safe ground he knew one thing for sure... that shit hurt.

Captain Mayhem stood coldly over the shriveled bodies of his enemies as the woman now ran, not sure whether she should be more afraid of the guy with the darkly glowing third eye... or the guys he just saved her from. At this moment it's clear they aren't a threat but she wasn't sure if this was the best time to attempt to show her gratitude or get the hell away... and when in doubt, get the hell out. But as she fled she saw a large hulking body that she did trust... Backalley Brawler. She ran towards the familiar hero and he, having seen this same scene many times before, quickly took off in the direction she was fleeing as she quickly calmed down and followed. Upon reaching the alley the Brawler looked around and was surprised that here lay not only two seemingly new recruits, but a high ranking Hellion and all to account for the work was this confused looking hero which he had never heard of in a Longbow costume ripoff.

"Hey kid, you do this all alone?" Captain Mayhem looked around the scene and stumbled a little before leaning against a wall. "Hey, you okay?" Brawler asked again, maybe he had given this kid too much credit... But as Cap finally regained his senses he spotted Backalley Brawler with a concerned look on his face. "Kid, you feeling alright?"

Finally Cap snapped out of it and shook off the cobwebs... and he was awestruck... Brawler could see the change in his face and almost blushed... if that were possible. But he had decided the kid was okay, "Hey what's your name kid?" Cap almost forgot for a second even though this persona had become automatic for him, it took him a while to take everything that had just happened in. "Me, oh, uh... Captain Mayhem." Brawler smirked, "Heh, that's original, so who helped you out here?"

"What? Oh, uh... nobody... I heard a lady scream and I just came running in... the first two were no problem but the last one..." He looked over at the hole in the brick wall then at the Hellion bleeding on the ground and Brawler almost cried from laughter. He could imagine the kid walking into the alley full of confidence then after K'Oing the first two got caught with a blast from the Damned and got a little out of control. "No problem kid, what level security clearance do you have by the way?" Captain Mayhem almost didn't know what to say, but the truth was probably best... "To be honest with you sir... I haven't registered yet... I don't know where to go."

The Brawler was laughing up a storm inside, three Hellions beaten to a pulp by an unregistered hero, this should get some laughs from some of his acquaintances. "You know, heroing without a license is a serious offense... I bet you could get 5 to 10 years in the Zig..." But the look on the kid's face forced Brawler not only to burst out laughing but to quit the prank he was pulling. "I was just pulling your leg kid, loosen up. I doubt it would really matter seeing as how you're obviously new to the City and you just saved a woman from a ... less than desired fate, but nobody has to know about this but us. You just get on down to City Hall in Atlas City and fill out those forms. A bunch of bureaucratic bullshit if you ask me but whacha gonna do huh?" Brawler's personality kind of humored Cap, he was nothing at all how he imagined... he seemed just like a regular person fed up with his job but stuck in a position where he really had no choice. "Now you get on out of here and let me handle the rest of this. And come see me any time you need advice... Captain Mayhem, not likely a name I'll forget."

Captain Mayhem nodded before thanking Backalley Brawler and running off to the Yellow Line train station. Seeing as how he didn't really know where he was going nor how he knew to look for Yellow line it took a rather long time to find it. It was a good chance get to know the area and take in some of the sites, although just as in any city for every glittering tourist filled avenue there are 3 more you'd nuke if you could. Cap was able to stop a few muggings and seemed to disrupt a small gathering of Hellions as he ran into the wrong alley; he even came across some of the wierdest little robotic things that he swore were some kids lost toys, but when he approached them the damned things attacked. Unlikely for them being robotic and not human he was able to unleash his claws and made pretty quick work of them. All in all though it was a pretty interesting walk, he even found what he was looking for. A tall, blue and white station attached to the monorail which ran throughout most of Paragon. As he walked up the ramp into the station he spotted a few heroes light heartedly flying through the sky as if nothing else mattered. How he wished he'd wake up one day and his feet would be itching...

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Okay, that's it for part 1, as if it weren't long enough. Please rate it and let me know what you think as this is my first fan fic but I have more in mind, including Legend of Zelda and Street Fighter ones... none of that goofy stuff some people do... really serious ones... might even squeeze out a Kingdom Hearts one but that one gets very complicated so I might not... catch you later! 


	2. Episode 2: The Arrival part 2

Note: A fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhemis the main character others from my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty willmake appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villians... although if I didI'dhave some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that'ssome majorbank. Tobe honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kindof depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention to time spent of getting him to level 50...but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn'treflect the game play or story in any way... just the fictional adventures of a character I made in a fictional world... doesthat make it a fictional account of actual events?

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Captain Mayhem and The Preventors of Carnage 

Episode 2: Arrival part II

As he exited the Yellow Line train station with several other heroes as well as civilians, Captain Mayhem was unusually comfortable for just coming from an extremely public place. Back home whenever he was out in public the stares from people almost always seemed to ruin the ride... How can you take in the scenery when there's a train full of people staring at you because of your third eye? But here in Paragon nobody seemed to really notice... or with all the mutants, aliens, hellspawn and the like nobody really cares about a pretty normal looking red head with a third eye. The trip through Steel Canyon was pretty quick but while looking out of the window Cap watched several heroes speed right past, one jumping hero even used the train as a landing pad startling a few people on board and prompting Captain Mayhem to prepare his claws. A telepath on board calmed everyone down and Cap felt pretty embarrassed.

Atlas Park was a pretty small part of town but what's that old saying? "Dynamite comes in small packages" fits this place perfectly. Cap had never seen such a high concentration of super powered people in one place before. They were flying, speeding, jumping and swinging all over the place. Not to mention the tall buildings and massive statues that were starting to seem like the norm around here. On his way to City Hall he even made a friend... a young blaster named Fireworker had gotten a little in over her head with some Vazhilok. Cap had never seen them before... at least not in real life but they most closely resembled those zombies from "Night of the Living Dead" and such other movies. At first he watched from a distance as she was able to handle the first two... but when one wearing a morticians clothing bought them back to life, or so to speak for ones such as them, things quickly got out of hand. Captain Mayhem ran in claws outstretched expecting to make confetti out of the undead attackers, however after a blast from behind from one dressed in all black, called a Mire Edilon, both of the young heroes were in trouble.

"Why'd I think I could get away with heroing without a license again? This might hurt and I'm sure she doesn't heal as well as me... I wonder if I could distract them long enough for her to get away..." were the thoughts going through Captain Mayhem's mind. But before he could act out anything four blasts of energy rained down from the sky and suddenly all that was left was a crossbow one of them wielded. Upon looking up the young heroes saw someone wearing a red and black metallic costume with a very nice cape hovering above them with flames coming from his boots. "Noobs!" said the veteran hero as he sped off laughing.

Captain Mayhem had found out that Fireworker also was a fresh arrival to Paragon, but unlike him she had already registered. She explained the process to him and even left him her card before running off into more adventure. Thinking about her long black robe trimmed in red and matching pants made Cap rethink his whole costume. "Heh, that taxi driver is getting to me. I put a lot of work into putting this together..." But before he could think about it too long his breath had been taken away... Although it was before Cap's time there wasn't a person alive who didn't know of the sacrifice of Atlas. Way back in World War II he almost single handedly defended Independence Port from the onslaught of Nazi invaders at the same time Pearl Harbor was attacked. And the statue of him in Atlas Park holding up the earth was almost indescribable for Cap but knowing he was following in the footsteps of such a giant kind of swelled him with pride.

If Freedom Corps had disappointed Captain Mayhem City Hall made up for it. It was filled with smaller statues of legendary heroes such as Cassieopia who had saved the earth from a meteor and and on the roof an old cape of Statesman made for a pretty impressive American flag. Knowing exactly where to go and what to do thanks to his new friend, Cap grabbed the paperwork and starting writing. The entire experience was kind of funny with the large tankers trying to fit under a small counter, or those in armor suits complaining of the heat... kind of put the whole super aspect of what they do in question. If they could be overcome by such simple things what really separates us from normal people... "The powers." One nosy telepath said with her nose crinkled. Cap looked up and instead of being offended that she had just invaded his thoughts it was kind of soothing... of course that could have just been a telepathicly induced feeling from his empathic friend. Her name was Highschool Teacher and she had psychically implanted the knowledge into his brain as well as the knowledge that she wouldn't or couldn't dig deeper than he'd wanted her to, something else that soothed him. But then again pondering the"couldn't" part got him to thinking... and why wouldn't she be able to?

Hero License Application Form A

Real Name: Phil Carter

Alias: Captain Mayhem

Origin: Mutant

Powers (if applicable): Regeneration and a funny eye

Weapons (if applicable): Metal Claws

Identifying Traits (tails, horns, tattoos, etc.): Third Eye

Eye Color: Black , third eye changes

Check Box if you desire to join Freedom Corps: nope

The whole process was pretty boring but after filling out the rest of the form he had to go to G.I.F.T. for his physical and decisions/morals exam.The mutant branch of hero operations, also know as G.I.F.T. was located in the basement of City Hall. After not having to try too hard to find it Cap walked in and was lead to where he had to go.The doctor read through his file and upon reaching the powers part looked up questioningly, after seeing the "funny eye" he smirked slightly before going through the rest of it. After thoroughly examining Cap, the Doctor filled out the height and weight portions of the form as well as some side notes about his skeleton. No surprise to our hero not only was he of exceptional health, his genes were still mutating... in other words his powers could change at any given moment. The doctor commented that although this had been seen before it was very rare, but in each case the hero went on to form an exceptional career for himself... or gone extremely mad.

Then Captain Mayhem was led to a teleport room, he was told that after stepping onto the pad he would be transported to a zone nicknamed Outbreak for his decisions/morals exam. Basically it was a field test where the trainee would be put into a live combat situation in an area swarming with a gang called the Contaminated. These poor souls had gotten their hands on an experimental drug which, not unlike Superdine, resulted in feelings of invulnerabilty, enhanced strength and, if not given the counter agent in time, madness. Because of his unstable genes Captain Mayhem was given a red and black rebreather to keep him from taking in any fumes that may be in the area which might result in an unwanted mutation.

The area looked like a war zone, certainly nothing like anything he'd seen in Paragon thus far. Captain Mayhem looked around not knowing where to go; he had been told to look for Coyote who would send him on any tasks available or just make one up for him. Cops wearing thick bullet proof vests littered the zone and as far as he could see they had things under control. They spotted him walking by and a few of them removed their hats in a show of admiration for the new hero. Although heroes in their own right deep down every member of the PPD wished they could be a **_super _**hero, there's nothing like zooming through the city... or through space even, in the case of some heroes, and smashing some heads.

"Hey officers... I'm supposed to be looking for uh..." He couldn't believe he forgot the name already...

"Coyote maybe?" one of the officers asked with a grin. "Welcome hero, the name's Sergeant Hicks." he said with his hand outstretched.

"Captain Mayhem" he said as he returned the gesture and quickly noticed that Sergeant Hicks had a very firm handshake.

"What the hell do you have under there? Stone hands?" The confused officer said while rubbing his palm...

"Not exactly" Captain Mayhem replied, he backed up from his new colleague and forced out his claws. Even in a city like Paragon it's only so often you see claws, and very rarely are they in the condition of Caps...

"Never seen claws like that before... I'll have to keep that in mind... anyway Coyote is a hard guy to miss... but if you wanna know where he is you're going to have to earn that info." He said with a grin which Cap returned with a nod and a smirk of his own. "Okay hero, head south for a few blocks until you come to a lot full of Rikti drones. Right across the street from there is an empty lot go through the lot and you'll see a fence with some of those Contaminated behind it, it's the zone we've quarantined them to. One of those creeps got their hands on an officer's badge and is flashing it around. We'd run in there full force and take out all the suckers, but we have orders and there's too many to try to take down without backup. That's where you come in hero. If you can go in there and find that badge I'll tell you how to find Coyote."

"If there's so many of them that you guys can't do it what makes you think I can?" Captain Mayhem said with his mind swirling with possibilities.

"Well you're a hero shouldn't be too tough for you... but no, the serious reason kiddo is a lone hero has a much better chance of sneaking around than a squad of police officers, you're probably better equipped to handle them too..." Sergeant Hicks said confidently.

Satisfied with the answers Captain Mayhem took off running in the direction he was told. He stopped when he reached the lot and stared at the rikti drones... he was sure there wasn't a super powered being on Earth that didn't know what they looked like. During the invasion he had to be the one to take lead in his neighborhood. Being one of the places the Rikti seemed to form a base under, the people were being forced out by the dozens. He and his brother formed a small band of would be heroes determined to take back their homes... if it weren't for his powers he doubt he'd be here now. For all his recovering abilities he wasn't much of a challenge for a Rikti Mentalist... not many people were... if it weren't for the intervention of a local group of telepaths no one would have made it out alive and in the end it wasn't until actions that separated the Rikti from their homeland that they were finally able to recover their homes. This was about the time he decided to come to Paragon. He'd heard that there were still zones under Rikti control and felt no one deserved to be homeless, on his life or death he'd make sure Paragon and the rest of Earth was freed of these... things.

After jumping the gate Cap soon found out why the cops wouldn't waste their time here... not only was it swarming with these green eyed addicts but they were out of control. A mob of them stood over a fire fighting over some food tossed in by the police, although they were a menace they were still human and couldn't be allowed to just starve to death. Cap looked around for signs of where he should start looking but really had no clue, then his third eye locked onto a location. There was a building about three blocks down and on the other side of an abandoned construction site, he was sure that if he could make it there he'd find what he was looking for. Cap ran through the alleys trying to avoid a conflict and was surprisingly good at it. At one point though he had to quickly jump onto the side of a building and use his claws to dig into the bricks to keep from being spotted... the whole experience was invigorating though and the adrenaline started flowing like water through a fire hose.

As chance would have it however he spotted one of the Contaminated actually wearing the badge in question. He retracted his claws and let himself fall back into a a somersault before landing on all fours. Pressing his body up against a wall Captain Mayhem spotted his prey... whom happened to be holding a gun. Most of the Infected he'd seen so far wielded bats and sticks if anything at all but a gun wasn't much of a threat to Cap... unless it was aimed at his stomach of course, no bones there. The small group of thugs had been scoped out, seven in all... shouldn't be too much of a problem right? Not like these guys had any real powers right? Since Cap was alone there really wasn't much worry about someone getting hurt, there wasn't much he could see seven drug enhanced punks doing to him... at least not without a chainsaw or blow torch.

And he made his move, Captain Mayhem dashed towards his target completely focused on the first blow... and when it came it nearly toppled over his target but not quite... "Damn... feelings of invulnerability forgot about that." Cap thought to himself as his green eyed enemy stared him, then he quickly pulled out his claws and sliced the gun into four pieces. This surprised each one of the junkies in the group who quickly started swinging away with bats and sticks as the one with the badge started to run away.

"Careful boys, I bruise easy" Cap said with a smirk on his face as he cut through the wooden weapons of his enemies. Cap was enjoying the rumble but was quickly losing sight of the objective... the main guy was getting away... so he dodged a punch from one of the Infected Brawlers and grabbed him by the arm then started spinning as fast as he could. The force from their friend crashing into the other Contaminated bought Cap enough time to take off. After a few seconds of chasing him the thug did something Cap wasn't expecting... probably the last thing he would have expected... he turned around. Quickly Cap was happy that the drug Outbreak drove these guys mad and not smart. The thug ran at Cap as Cap ran at him and the force from Cap's punch was enough to knock him out this time.

With a feeling of relief and surprise at how easy it had been Cap reached down and picked up... "A plastic badge? What the hell? I sure hope this wasn't some type of joke..." He said to the cops who were practically falling over from laughter.

"Good job hero, not bad at all" Sergeant Hicks said as he reached for the novelty badge. "You see, new heroes come in here all the time and we give them tests based on their personality...You chose this task yourself kiddo, cause if you had kept walking south until you came to the intersection going downhill you'd have easily spotted Coyote. Then when I told you what needed to be done you could have easily refused and searched on your own... I don't know whether it was courage, generosity, stupidity or a sense of justice that led you to accept but they're all qualities a hero needs at times..."

"But what about the badge?" Captain Mayhem said confusedly.

"Heh, sorry for tricking you but we leave one of these behind the quarantine zone just for the purpose of testing guys like you, not very often they come back with it though... good luck Captain Mayhem." And Sergeant Hicks once again offered Cap his hand and the two now shook like old friends... his grip wasn't so tight this time though. "Keep it as a memento of your first adventure."

And with that Cap took off. After finding Coyote things went pretty quick. He said that after completing the tasks for Sergeant Hicks it was about time for Cap to go take the photo for his license. Coyote almost burst from laughter after seeing the reaction on Cap's face as he walked onto the teleporter. The trip was quick and ended in a surprise, for as soon as he arrived back in G.I.F.T. Headquarters he heard a snap and saw a flash of light,and before he knew what was going on his picture was being laminated onto his official class H license.

"Congratulations, you are now legally a super powered crime fighter." He heard a recording of Statesman's voice tell him. "Remember that you now carry with you the honor of all who came before you and should act responsibly. A hero never kills unless absolutely necessary and always does his best to protect the innocent. But don't forget to take care of yourself, every man has his weaknesses." The words of the world's first super powered crime fighter would be some that he never forgets, and as Captain Mayhem took the hero I.D. into his hand he was already imagining his next few adventures... but none of them involved him riding on the bus.

As Cap slowly walked out of City Hall his mind raced to take in everything that had happened today. It was kind of funny to be honest... he's had his costume insulted, rescued a woman, lost control of his powers, met a legendary hero, been saved, made some new friends, etc., etc. As he thought on the being saved part there was one thing that really stuck in his mind... "When can I get a cool cape?"

* * *

(Notes: Well that's it... episode 2 is in the history books and the real adventures will be getting started soon... parts of this one didn't feel right to me but I think it turned out okay... the ending was pretty corny though huh? Keep those reviews coming in and I'll keep churning out adventures, I have plenty in mind. And look for me on the Liberty Server on any of my heroes, Captain mayhem, Ex-Man, or Eternal Guilt. Catch you later.) 


	3. Episode 3: Enter The Squishy

Note: A fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhem is the main character others from my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty will make appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villians... although if I did I'd have some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that's some major bank. To be honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kind of depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention to time spent of getting him to level 50... but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn't reflect the game play or story in any way... just the fictional adventures of a character I made in a fictional world... does that make it a fictional account of actual events?

Captain Mayhem and The Preventors of Carnage

Episode Three: Enter The Squishy...

"Heroing, not as exciting as I had imagined." thought Captain Mayhem as he rolled out of bed in his Kings Row apartment. In this part of town he could hardly walk out of the door without running into a mugging or a drug deal. Coming home without the guys he had just got done locking up knowing his address was a chore. It had been two weeks since he'd gotten his hero license and he still hadn't had any real excitement yet. He'd be running down the street and someone would call out for help, or someone from one of the gangs he'd made a reputation with would try making a name for themselves through him. Not to mention being a hero didn't pay very well... he had no clue how anyone could do this for long without starving to death. At least cops could collect a paycheck... the best he could do was find a gift basket at his front door from one of the residents who knew of the hobby of their next door neighbor.

"At least it's pretty good." He said while going through a pan of piping hot lasagna he found as he came home last night. The thought occurred to him that with his luck it was poisoned, but with his immune system it was no biggie...

"Ahhh, nothing like a warm meal of pasta to get those heroic juices flowing." he thought while devouring the meal. He didn't have very long to enjoy it though. So, as much as it pained him, he had to devour it fast instead of savoring and thoroughly enjoying each bite as he would like.

He'd gotten word from Backalley Brawler that the Trolls were bringing in a new batch of Superdine; and although Cap had no hard feelings towards a group of people who would inject themselves with a drug which turned them green and made them as smart as a doorknob he did have a problem with them trying to introduce it into Paragon City's water supply in order to swell their numbers.

"This job is too dangerous to work alone." Cap remembered the Brawler telling him. I know another guy, another scrapper, he works with a sword though..."

"So the use of fatal measures is approved?" Cap asked wide eyed and kind of uncomfortably.

"Heh, calm down kid." Brawler reassured him, "This guy knows what he's doing, but with the threat level this high I'd say yeah, if you absolutely have to... we could have a city full of trolls by the end of the week if they get that stuff in the water."

Cap had never killed anyone but knew he could if he had to... but how would it feel? Anyway it was time to get going so he shoved as much of the lasagna in his mouth as he could fit and started getting dressed. "Costume, check! Gloves, check, Rebreather, check!"... ever since receiving it from G.I.F.T. he'd been wearing this thing just in case. It kept any unwanted things in the air out of his system and looked pretty cool to boot. After making sure everything was set he opened the window to his 3rd story apartment and jumped down onto the fire escape. He found this to be the best way out due to the window facing a pretty quiet alley. He jumped to the ground from the second floor and didn't pause for a second, bless those metal bones of his.

The meeting spot was yellow line in Skyway City. Due to Cap's inability to travel without public transport there weren't too many places as convenient as this. From there they'd be heading for the sewers to hunt for the Trolls. On the train ride Cap thought about the upcoming mission... there are 6 levels of security for heroes in Paragon, Protector of Innocents being the lowest recognized ranking. The others are Keeper of Peace, Defender of Truth, Justice Incarnate, and Hero of the City. Right now Cap was a nobody, the lowest possible level, and the only way to progress was by taking down criminals and gaining a name for himself.

The words of Backalley Brawler replayed in his mind... "You're partner on this has a Keeper of Peace security level, normally someone as low on the totem pole as you wouldn't even get considered for this... but I have faith in you kid." Then Brawler erupted into laughter as he thought about the Hellions boss Cap pounded on his first day in Paragon.

"He has faith in me..." Cap thought as the train arrived in the Skyway City hub. He stood at the doors as they opened and was greeted by a familiar face.

"Hey Cap!" Said Highschool Teacher as she walked off the train. The two had been on a few tasks together and were becoming friends. He was learning a lot about her powers due to his recklessness. Highschool Teacher was a pure "medic" type hero. Using empathy she was able to soothe the wounds of her comrades, something Cap had grown to appreciate, she was also his main means of transport, besides the monorails throughout the city, thanks to her teleporting ablilities.

"How's it going Teach?" he asked while trying to keep her attention off the fact he was on a mission... she was pretty pushy if she wanted something and she would go on almost any mission available seemingly. If he didn't have to hide his thoughts he could be more comfortable...

"Not bad Cap, except the feeling you're trying to hide something... don't worry though I've stopped peeking into other people's minds... was told I have to 'Act more responsibly' so I am... I can still catch what you think about me though." Captain Mayhem was able to relax a little bit. "So, on a big mission?"

"Yeah, but I can't tell you about it... I'm not supposed to even be on it but Brawler made an exception... meeting my partner here..." Highschool Teacher pouted a little bit trying to act disappointed...

"Awww... would it help if I told you I got rank this morning?" Cap almost bit his tongue out of surprise. She opened her jacket and showed him the badge. "Pretty impressive huh?"

Siro had been told to meet his partner at the Yellow Line station in Skyway... it was about time. "Eh, no rush..." ever since learning how to manipulate the gravity around him time seemed less important. He zipped through the streets of Skyway with no goal in mind, mainly taking in the scenery. "Well it's close might as well see if he's there." Jumping around at 80 miles per hour was only mildly entertaining but it wasn't safe to move any faster in city limits. He got to the station and looked around... he was told he couldn't miss this guy... then he saw him...

"Hey, you Captain Mayhem?" he said to the guy wearing the bad Longbow costume with the third eye.

"Huh?" said Cap still recovering from the shock that Teach was ranked before him. The guy approaching him wore a blue and white Icon made costume without a mask. He had a sword on his back and another on his waist. "Oh yeah, you must be Siro."

"The one and only, you ready to go? We have to get moving or we might not make it..."

"Hmm, I'm intrigued..." added Teach "Can I tag along? I teleport... can save you a lot of time." she said with an optimistic grin. Siro looked at Cap who just shrugged his shoulders.

"Whatever, I guess the more the merrier... anyway what's that?" he said while poking at Cap's third eye with the sheath of his sword. Teach giggled and Cap, while not amused couldn't help laughing a little himself.

"What's it look like? It's my eye, stop poking..." Siro was still intrigued but stopped poking, instead he just stared curiously...

"So what are you, some type of alien... demon?" Siro asked while Teach disappeared.

Cap was surprised... where he came from those were some of the last things that came to mind but here I guess it wasn't unusual to see.

"Naa, mutant..." He said to no one in particular. "Damn Teach... I hate when she does that." as he suddenly disappeared also. Although he had been getting used to the trips, teleporting was far from normal... it seemed to last a lot longer than it actually did and his head always hurt afterwards... but it went away soon enough. "As I was saying... I'm a mutant... and I couldn't help noticing how fast you were moving earlier... you?" as he stood at the entrance of Paragon's Sewer network.

Siro's face lost a little of it's pep as he thought of his past, "Regular human, no new genes, all training... Anyway how'd you know where we were supposed to be ..." He said while struggling to remember her name, then suddenly realizing he hadn't been told.

"It's Highschool Teacher... and I kind of caught it from Cap when he realized who you were." Suddenly her face had a defensive look "I am being more responsible, but I can't help but hear your thoughts sometimes... you're weird it's like your brain is wired different..." she said at the now grinning Cap.

"Whatever... and at least she told you her name... she implanted it in my thoughts..." Cap said at Siro while Teach just smirked.

"Cool... telepathy seems cool..." Siro said before being interrupted.

"Anyway don't we have some trolls to stop?" Teach said while holding open the door to the sewer...

They had been trekking through the sewers for twenty minutes and Highschool Teacher couldn't stand it. Siro didn't seem to mind although it wasn't exactly the best place for super speeding, Cap on the other had had a pretty bad feeling. They had come across some Lost not too long after entering and even though they were easily handled something seemed wrong.

The Lost are basically humans turned Rikti through some process Cap didn't even want to think about. Their bodies became disfigured and their skin started to change into the texture Rikti are known for, nasty. But something didn't feel right about the ones they passed, it was almost like they had a purpose... his attention was quickly drawn to some footprints he saw on the pavement...

"Looks like they're heading this way." Siro said as he turned in the direction the sludge prints pointed towards.

"This is almost too easy for a near cataclysmic assignment..." Cap started but was interrupted by Siro.

"That's cause Trolls are stupid, and I don't mean that in a nice way." Captain Mayhem hadn't come across them yet, but these Superdine powered morons had run across Siro a time or two... almost laughable.

"Hey Siro" Cap said during a pause in the conversation... "what's with the two swords?"

Siro grabbed the sword at his waist by the hilt and held it, "One's for bringing them back alive... the other..." he said nothing but his grin said it all. Cap nodded knowing what was implied.

"I'm starting to feel life signs up ahead, I guess we're getting close" Highschool Teacher added. She would be happy to get out this sewer and the sooner the better... what in the world possessed her to join these guys anyway?

They came to a door which once opened led to the basement of the Paragon City Reservoir. Teach teleported upstairs with Siro while Cap dove at the dozen or so Trolls trying to get a large barrel of Superdine upstairs. Half of this crowd was composed of relatively new Trolls called Trollkin, while the other half was made of what are called Garvords. Cap learned quickly the difference in the two after punching a Garvord in the chest. He was able to knock it back, but it felt like hitting a wall and he was sure his fist was bruised. They were quickly surrounding him and suddenly he found himself in the midst of another battle. Siro was dodging bullets as a Supa Troll threw barrels of Superdine at Highschool Teacher. She was able to teleport herself to safety but the numbers were quickly beginning to be a burden for the young heroes. Cap ran up on and knocked out the Trollkin shooting at Siro while Siro used the momentum from his superspeed to knock several of them out with his dull bladed sword.

"This is crazy!" Highschool Teacher yelled out while dodging barrels of Superdine. She stopped attacking her enemies a long time ago because with her powers hurting someone else meant she felt it...

"Well as long as he's throwing the cans at you people can't drink it!" Siro yelled out while running directly into the Supa Troll. These massive green skinned morons were the top of the Troll food chain. Pure muscle, no brain, but they proved to not need it often. As a result of their lack in the metal category however they were easily duped by others. This one stood like a mountain against the wind after Siro's head on attack. He looked down on the hero with his tusked face and snarled before swinging one of his massive arms at him. Siro easily dodged the attack before nailing the Troll in the neck with his dull bladed sword. It wasn't meant to cut through much, and even if it had been it's doubtful this Troll's skin would have been pierced. He paused for a second in amazement and was knocked back 20 feet after a swipe from the Troll. Teach saw this and teleported Siro to her side. He landed on his stomach and quickly grabbed at his ribs.

In the mean time Captain Mayhem had his hands full, and he was loving it. After slicing through 5 or so guns he'd decided why not put the claws to good use? If they failed here the whole mission was a waste. His blows were quick and intentional but not fatal, making sure to aim to debilitate, not kill.

"Cap, Siro's hurt" Teach projected into his mind. "I can fix him but it's going to take time, keep that big one off of us!"

Captain Mayhem grinned at the thought of a good fight and ran towards his opponent... then stopped once he realized it wasn't the guy he thought it was... this thing stood about 8 feet tall with not an ounce of fat on him... his eyes had a dark green glow to them and his skin shaded towards the lime end of the spectrum. He searched around looking for Siro and laughed when he saw Cap. "Heh, me have body by Superdine, you go squish now!" Cap almost burst into laughter but the adrenaline flowed quickly through him and everything almost moves in slow motion.

The Troll swings his right arm at Cap and seems to be aiming for the head, but Cap (half out of skill and 60 luck) manages to dodge the blow. He aims his claws for the under arm but the Hulk-like Troll moves too fast and instead his claws scrape against it's skin leaving a 2 foot long paper cut like wound. The Troll got angry and started tearing apart machines, tossing them at Cap. "Shit" thinks Captain Mayhem, "that may have been a mistake". Cap hears footsteps coming from behind him but can't turn around due to the angry giant hurling hunks of metal at him.

"Jimbo's out of control huh?" said Atta, one of the elite in the Troll's ranks. "Atta go, Jimbo finish dumb hero." replied the angry beast as Atta ran to the nearest exit he could find.

"Now Jimbo make hero go squish!" The Supa Troll yelled while charging at Cap. Cap ducked down between Jimbo's legs and as the Troll ran past Cap tried to cut his shins. Although it was unsuccessful he did manage to slice them a little and prompt a squeal from the monster every time he moved his legs, which in turn only angered him more.

"Heh, doesn't seem like I can do much more than piss this guy off..." Cap said while smiling on the inside. Out of nowhere a blur of blue and white appeared from the sky and Jimbo screamed out in pain. The giant fell to the ground rolling around in pain as blood started to leak from his back. Cap looked around impressed as Siro stood with his "other" sword in his hands and panting hard.

"Bastard!" Siro said while sheathing his sword. "Lucky for you you're heads so small or the air leaking in from the hole I would have left would have put something in there..." he added with a smirk.

"Aww, Siro mad cause Jimbo make him go squish?" Cap teased as his retracted his claws. Highschool Teacher popped in and surveyed the scene...

"Looks like they got a couple cans in there, but not enough to do anything... there was too much water. The worst that might happen is a few civilians throw some tantrums or fail some pee tests." Teach said with a grin. "So looks like everything turned out okay."

They all stayed until the Paragon Police Troll Task Force arrived and arrested all of the Trolls laid throughout the building. Paramedics examined Siro and he tried to thanked Teach when he found out he was at one hundred percent but she wasn't anywhere to be found. Captain Mayhem was confused for a second but realized what was going on when Siro disappeared, he was next. He arrived at the Yellow Line station with a major headache as Highschool Teacher and Siro stood talking to each other.

"Anytime!" She said as she disappeared once again and implanted "See you Cap" into the mind of a now exhausted Captain Mayhem.

Cap and Siro talked about nothing in particular as Cap waited for the train to arrive and when it finally did, they said their goodbyes. "Well, it was fun Cap, we're going to have to team up again some day."

"Sure thing Squishy!" Cap said with a grin as the door to the monorail closed with Siro looking pissed on the other side. It had been a pretty eventful day but Cap felt more tired than he knew he should have. Don't know if it was being around the Superdine or those Trolls hitting harder than he thought they had but something wore him out. As Cap slowly did the walk back towards his apartment he was surprised, and lucky that no one tried to attack him. Not even bothering to attempt the climb he walked straight into the front door and made his way up the stairs. He grabbed his keys from inside the plant he'd place them in every morning and didn't even bother to pick up the bag of food laying by his door. The first thing he did was plop down on his bed and drift off to sleep.

Although his dreams may have had something worth mentioning it wasn't until he woke up at exactly midnight that something truly worthwhile occurred. Waking up slowly from a deep sleep Cap rolled over and reached for his pillow. Although his bed was harder than he remembered it wasn't enough to wake him. No... it wasn't until instead of feeling the soft pillows which were firm enough to keep his metal skull from sinking straight through them, he felt the wall of his bedroom. This prompted Cap to open his eyes and to his complete shock he wasn't laying on his bed, but the ceiling of his apartment!

Note: Heh, that's Episode 3 I have to thank my Proofreader Unrial for taking the time to make this even better than it was... (not much cause u know I'm uber) and everyone who's supported me so far. Look for future episodes cause u know what flying means... Yeah... big adventures! I've even got clones, undead pyschics and a reality warping battle so big it could change the future... (like you can change what hasn't happened yet.) But what I'm really saying is the fun is just starting so make sure to stay close.

P.S. If anyone on the Liberty Server has a bubbler we could use one in our Super Group... send me an ingame email for invite Captain Mayhem


	4. Episode 4: Fish Bait

Note: A fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhem is the main character others from my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty will make appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villians... although if I did I'd have some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that's some major bank. To be honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kind of depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention to time spent of getting him to level 50... but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn't reflect the game play or story in any way... just the fictional adventures of a character I made in a fictional world... does that make it a fictional account of actual events?

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Captain Mayhem and The Preventors of Carnage

Interesting Developments/Fishbait

"Wha... what the hell is going on?" Was the first thing Captain Mayhem thought as he looked down upon his bed from the ten foot ceiling of his apartment. The next thing that happened was pretty awkward and hard to describe as Captain Mayhem flailed against the empty space between him and his bed then clumsily bumped his head against the wall. He rubbed his head in confusion, and before he knew it plummeted to the bed below with a crash. He just knew he'd hear something from the neighbors down stairs but wasn't too concerned about that right now. "I know I wanted to fly... but this is... just weird, even for me..." the perplexed hero said to no one in particular. Unsure of what else to do he grabbed his hero license out of a nearby drawer and being in his costume from earlier didn't have much else to worry about as he quickly climbed out of his bedroom window and headed for Atlas Park.

Although he was unsure exactly how late it was, Captain Mayhem hoped that someone was at G.I.F.T. whom could help him out. "Maybe it had something to do with the way I felt earlier... No, I'm sure it had something to do with it but what caused it?" he thought while walking through the dark streets of Kings Row. "Wow this place has been quiet lately", a thought which may have come just a bit too early as Cap happened onto a deal between the Hellions and the Skulls. He wasn't too concerned with it but it just so happened that one of the Hellions was very close to the first guy Cap got arrested when he came to Paragon. Although he was in charge of this deal, he'd sworn to get back at the asshole hero who ruined his boy's face. The hardened leader quickly shrugged off whatever the Skull leader was saying and signaled for his posse to come near. Insulted by his actions the Skull leader raised up in anger, "You pussies beg for this meeting then you ignore what I have to say?" He said as his gang closed their ranks and gripped their weapons.

"Oh boy, I don't have time for this!" Captain Mayhem said as he noticed the members of the Hellions slowly moving in different directions in an attempt to encircle him. Any other day he might find some enjoyment in this but his mind was too weighed down with what was happening to him to get excited, in fact it felt more like a burden than anything. "Damn Hellions never give me any peace... wait till I master this flying thing and I zoom right over your damn heads, who ya gonna mess with then?" Cap amused himself with that thought and was almost at peace, until a gunshot went off near the main crowd. The adrenaline started flowing quickly and he analyzed the scene as screams could be heard coming from the Skulls members being burnt by the Hellion leader. His flunkies quickly went into action, leaping out at Cap from all sides and he found himself ducking and dodging bodies left and right. He hated the fact that his most trusted weapon wasn't to be used against them... it made his fights a lot tougher than they needed to be. Chopping through bats had become boring and knocking these fools out was a piece of cake... almost too easy.

He had never been able to take down **_everybody_** with one punch before... "Heh, maybe my adventures are starting to pay off." All the extra activity must have made him stronger because he was dropping these goons left and right. Finally the screaming coming from on top of the hill grabbed his attention, just long enough for one of the Hellions to take a shot at him... literally. The aim had been dead on, and as the shell bounced off of Cap's metal skull and onto the floor he looked at the guy who took the shot like he had to be driven to school on the little yellow bus. The Fallen, the name for the Hellion lieutenants, looked at Captain Mayhem like something had to be wrong... he saw blood coming from where his bullet hit... but this guy was still standing... maybe a few more shots could do the trick. So he proceeded to shoot three more times, two bouncing off of Cap's chest while the other was dodged. "Th...there's no fucking way man..." was all he said as he quickly ran as fast as he could away from this monster with a hero license.

"That little mother..." was all Cap could say before the screams coming from the hill caught his attention again. It turns out that this Damned was a lot more powerful than the Skulls Bone Daddy had counted on, that proven by the toasted corpses of his less powerful comrades. Cap didn't know what the hell he had walked into but he wondered "Why now of all times? I didn't even grab my damn rebreather!" The oxygen purifier had acted as a face mask to keep all of the unwanted elements of the Paragon City atmosphere out of his delicate system. And now he was face to face with the biggest show of dark energy he could've imagined since becoming a Super Powered Crime Fighter. The air grew cold with each blast from the hands of the Skulls leader and the grass he was standing on seemed to die right under his feet... "I've got to put that guy down."

The two men stood no more than twenty feet apart as their energies collided. The Skulls Bone Daddy grinned as his dark powers drained the life right out of the fire his enemy projected at him, but his foe didn't seem to be anywhere near done. In fact he considered this guy quiet a worthy adversary, he hadn't had this much fun in ages. Sure everyone who had come with him was dead but that was part of the way of the Skulls, they embraced death and each one of them would be honored in their very own pre-chosen coffins. He looked towards his enemy wondering if the same fate awaited him.

"Damn this guy is a pain." The Damned thought as he tossed a line of fire at his foe only for it to fizzle into ash a few feet in front of it's target. "But it'll be worth it once I have that cape's body on a spit!" He looked towards Captain Mayhem then thought of the way his buddy looked at the court hearing and the temperature from his flames rose towards the volcanic end of the thermometer. He shot the fire in a straight stream towards his enemy who was barely able to stop the blaze from roasting him. The Bone Daddy looked up from behind the rising smoke surprised at the sudden surge of strength from his opponent.

"Perhaps I angered too quickly" He said directed towards the Hellion steam rose from his hands. "Exactly what was it that caused you to interrupt the deal?" He asked not aware of what had happened to the rest of the Hellions.

The Hellion leader grinned at the sudden interest from his almost business associate as he placed his arms to his sides while building up a surprise... "What's got you all interested? It was your idea to ruin the deal and attack me... I just had some... other things to take care of." He said while turning his head to look at Captain Mayhem dashing towards them. "Damn... this might get complicated." The horned villain thought to himself.

"Well let's say I underestimated your abilities, and if I'm to die tonight I'd like to know why..."

That comment drew a grin from the Damned as he has summoned enough energy to try out his little trick. "Oh, so you're scared you might get killed cause you were too proud to be brushed off for a second?"

The grin he got in reply from his enemy threw him back a bit as the Skulls leader replied. "Oh no my friend, you see we learn very early not to fear death, but to embrace it... and when I'm standing this close to it that embrace makes me even stronger!" he said as sphere of black energy began to cover his body, sucking the life out of everything around him.

Captain Mayhem paused for a second as the Skull started to emit a pulse of dark energy and he could almost feel the life being drawn out of him... "What the hell..." Trees began to wither away as Captain Mayhem was brought to his knees... but he wouldn't let this happen. "...With this kind of power this guy could really hurt people." Cap told himself as he pushed himself to his feet. The air in the area began to grow cold and he found himself fighting the shivers as he ran up the small hill they stood on.

Suddenly the Hellion burst into flames. His body had been covered in a molten lava-like substance resembling what Cap had always pictured a fiery hell demon would look like, but at least he didn't have to worry about the cold any more. In the distance he could hear sirens and knew he had to do something about this before the police got there. "What would they be able to do against this? What can I do really?" he wasn't quiet sure but he'd find something. The lava encased villain rushed towards his enemy who looked completely surprised; and as the black orb began to dissolve due to the loss of concentration from the Skulls boss, he took one big swing with his arms and instantly reduced his enemy to a heap of charred organs and bones. Now his attention was solely on Cap.

"What the hell did I stumble onto?" Cap thought as the fire encased Damned now made his way towards him. He looked around quickly, searching for a way out of this as his enemy burned the very ground beneath him. Spotting something that could help him Captain Mayhem lead the Hellion towards a street corner as the sirens closed in. He stood patiently but anxious as the inferno approached him. "Damn what did I stumble into?" he thought as he could feel the intense heat radiating off of the Damned's fiery body. Then just as he got within striking distance Cap quickly jumped on top of the fire hydrant he had been hiding, sliced open the valve and let it loose, using his hands to help direct the tide of water gushing from the hydrant. He watched as steam rose from the fire around his target's legs and quickly turned to stone, effectively trapping the Hellion in place.

"What the hell?" The Damned yelled as he dispersed his fiery shell. His legs had been encased in the thick and still hot rock. "You mother.." he was promptly quieted with a quick hook to the chin from Captain Mayhem and as his body lay on the slab of rock a slight sizzle could be heard. As the police pulled up they surveyed the scene before approaching Cap.

As it turns out they believed he had been responsible for the stone prison and charring of all the Skulls in the area until Blue Steel, a veteran super hero who's base of operations was in Kings Row, had shown up to vouch for Cap. They had never met but apparently Backalley Brawler had started telling all his hero friends about the young scrapper, and had never mentioned any fire or stone powers. After Cap explained the whole story Blue Steel was able to piece together parts of the story. He explained the connection between this Damned and the one Brawler had told him about but couldn't figure out why the Hellions and Skulls were meeting... but he was sure the Skulls wouldn't sit on their people being killed like this, it might just be the start of a war.

Blue Steel had let Cap know that because of the unpredictable nature of mutants there was always someone on call at G.I.F.T. and City hall was always open for heroes. Cap got onto the monorail to Atlas Park and couldn't help but think about how weird today was. For weeks he had been looking for some adventure, and now he was pretty worn out from it. Two bigs fights in one day and a weird new power... Paragon sure was some place; it seemed to bring out... something in him, he hadn't decided quite what yet.

He walked towards City Hall and hoped that nothing else would happen... luckily nothing did. When the nurse at G.I.F.T. brought up his file she noticed a note from the doctor telling whomever was checking out Captain Mayhem to alert him regardless of the circumstances. She did just that and following orders, went through with a routine checkup and blood test. It was around this time that she pointed out to Cap the holes in his costume. He looked surprised for a second then cursed his luck. After the routine stuff she was enjoying an ear full of some of Captain Mayhem's story for about twenty minutes before the doctor came walking in.

"Ah, Captain Mayhem... I've been wondering when we'd see you next. I see you don't have the mask we gave you... were you wearing it before your experience?" Cap nodded his head before going into full detail what had happened today from the lasagna he ate to the headaches when teleported, to the mission involving Superdine. The doctor raised an eyebrow when Superdine was mentioned but after asking if Cap had on his rebreather and being told yes his suspicions died. He made a few phone calls and was able to get access to some of D.A.T.A.'s equipment, he then locked Cap in a room with a soft bed surrounded by a large machine. The doctor said that he wanted to recreate the conditions that led to Cap floating onto the ceiling since the blood tests showed that indeed his food had not been poisoned causing Cap to breath a sigh of relief.

"At least I know I can trust the food." he thought to himself. "Maybe Now I can enoy it even more.." Still being pretty worn out Cap was sure that he wouldn't have much trouble sleeping. "Wow this bed is soft." he thought as he laid down... but as he expected, his head went right through the pillow. He had to fold it in half in order to enjoy its softness on his skull. The surrounding was soothing enough but along with the background music he was out in no time, it was somewhere along the line of a harp playing with waves crashing against a beach but it did the trick.

With all of the super powered heroes in Paragon City the science geeks had to come up with something to explain how people without wings could fly. After lots of research and developing the right technology it was discovered that there is a slight gravity barrier around everything that certain people can manipulate. These heroes, whether they are aware of it or not, are able to generate flight by bending and pushing this barrier. So if he was right this barrier would be detected by the machines if Captain Mayhem was to hover in his dreams again. The only problem is not everyone can feel and use this gravity to their advantage and Captain Mayhem's floating may be the result of some type of psychic powers, which wouldn't be too far fetched considering some of the things he's said about that eye.

It wasn't long before the machine started to respond to the slight fluctuations in the gravity in the room. He was sure it wasn't necessary to continue any further but decided to let Cap sleep as long as he could. The strength of the gravity coming from Cap started to rise and soon he was hovering a few inches off of the table. Setting the computers in the room to moniter the events of Cap's sleep he exited to find some sleep of his own.

He awoke in the morning to find not only Captain Mayhem, but the machine around him also floating in the air. "Quite interesting." The Doctor said out loud as he read the numbers on the computer screen. "Not really" a D.A.T.A. Tech replied. "You'd be surprised how common it is actually... just means he's going to be a fast bugger. Hope that equipment comes down right though."

The doctor hoped for Captain Mayhem's sake that it came down right, it looked as though it'd squish him. But before long Cap, the machine and all slowly start to float to the ground and he wakes up unaware of anything that has happened. He climbs out of the bed and walks out of the room pretty normally, looks at the doctor and yawns. "Nothing aye Doc?"

The doctor merely grins while directing Cap towards the computer readings of his gravity output. "What's this?" asks Cap.

"This sir, is a reading of the strength of the gravity barrier around you. Not only will you eventually be able to fly, but according to this technician, you're going to be a 'fast bugger'" Captain Mayhem didn't really know what to say, but the smile on his face was more than enough to let everyone know how he felt. The doctor then explained the scientific explanation for the ability to fly, but continued that even in mutants it's rare to just develop the ability over night. The doctor had a hypothesis, due to the unbalanced nature of Captain Mayhem's internal systems his body at times adapted to suit his environment. In other words he was evolving rapidly to suit his needs. It sounded pretty cool to Cap but he wasn't too sure what that meant for him... as long as he could fly nothing else really mattered. He was told that he'd have to practice feeling for the vibrations around him and was given a DVD for him to watch later.

"So You're Learning To Fly" he read out loud as he slipped the disk into a borrowed video player. "So you're learning how to fly!" an unknown costumed figure said while standing in front of the statue of Atlas. "Flying is perhaps one of the most mythical and awe inspiring experiences known to man, and guess what you lucky hero? You're next to master this wonderful ability." Cap couldn't help but laugh at the complete cheesiness of it but it turned out to be helpful. Various heroes explained how they discovered their ability to fly and the process they'd go through each time they took off. Cap made mental notes and started to plan a whole process he'd go through each time he began to soar through the air.

Practices on how to feel for the barrier and use it how you want, as well as several battle related tricks were shown and our newbie flier did his best to remember them all. One of the methods was to meditate while concentrating on the energy around you. Cap wasn't quite sure what that meant but he tried to remember how he felt when pressed against the ceiling. It was a slow process and seemed to get even slower when he heard a knock at his door. He unfolded his legs and reluctantly walked towards the door. "It's probably just the people from downstairs coming to complain about the crash from last night." he thought. But to the young hero's surprise it was none other than Siro standing at his doorway.

"Hey Squishy what's up?" Cap said with a big grin.

"Haha, very funny. I've got word from Brawler there's something that needs to be done that only you can do..." Cap was very surprised by this and felt a little special, until he arrived in Talos Island and was told what needed to be done.

"YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT!" he said to the scientist as Siro stood back laughing.

"Well Brawler told us since it was your mess you would take care of it. Now let me go over this again... due to the introduction of Superdine into the water in Skyway City it was flushed into the sewer and emptied here, in Talos Island. Now there have been several reports of an abnormally large fish not far from where a line from Skyway City is. We've tried to capture the specimen but due to its ingestion of Superdine not only is it unusually strong but we've been unable to penetrate it's skin, prohibiting us from capturing and studying it."

"Yeah yeah, I've got that part, now... YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT!" Captain Mayhem repeated while Siro once again erupted in laughter.

"Yes well... what need need is for someone to manually inject it with a sedative so that..." once again he gets interrupted by Captain Mayhem.

"Yeah, I got that part... but you want me to do what?" this time through his laughter Siro was able to put what the doctor was trying to say in plain english.

"They want you to put on a little suit and go diving to find this fish. When he eats you you're supposed to stick it with a big needle then when it floats to the top of the water we're gonna cut you out." the sword wielding hero said hardly able to contain how funny he thought the situation was.

"That's the part I'm thinking about... why me?" Cap asked the scientist with one eyebrow raised giving this man of science his full attention.

"Well the suit should be able to hold up against the specimen's natural stomach acids but in the slight circumstance that it doesn't... well we've gone through your files and we see that you've recovered from very severe burns in a relatively short time. Also due to the nature of your immune system and fast adaptation to harmful agents if something does go wrong we figure that you'd either heal very fast from any injury or develop a resistance to the acids." the thought of being dissolved alive didn't sound very enticing but it was partly his fault that this had happened. If this thing was to cause any problems for people it would all be his fault...

"Whatever, you just make sure I'm not in there any longer than I have to be..." They all boarded a medium sized boat named Inquisitor and Captain Mayhem slipped into the suit. He had been wearing civilian clothes since his costume now had bullet holes in it. The suit didn't smell very appealing but it was supposed to attract the fish to it's bait. It was rubbery and covered every inch of his body except for a hole around the nose and eyes. His normal rebreather was good enough to filter the oxygen in the water into breathable air but he was also given a pair of goggles so that he'd be able to see.

The fish finder on board of the ship had detected the enormous thing not far from where they currently were, with a brave look Captain Mayhem plunged into the water and allowed himself to sink. "Man, what the hell did I get myself into?" he asked as dozens of tiny fish surrounded him and started nibbling on his diving suit. It wasn't before long that he found what he was looking for, or it found him rather. This thing had to be fifteen, no twenty feet long but other than that didn't look much different from any other bass Cap had seen. It came up quickly from behind him and before he knew it he and about fifty little fish were gulped up with a gallons of water and were traveling down the creature's throat. "Man this shit is nasty" Captain Mayhem thought to himself as he traveled on a super slide like none other he had seen. Soon he arrived in the tight belly of the beast and retrieved the extra large syringe he was given to inject the sedative.

Captain Mayhem hadn't been down there much more than 30 minutes when about a quarter mile from where they were a large figure popped out of the water. Siro laughed to himself as the boat took off full engine towards the sleeping giant; and using three nets they managed to drag it on shore where they had a water filled truck waiting. A crane was used to hoist it out of the water and right there on the beach of Talos Island for all to see Captain Mayhem emerged, his diving suit half dissolved, from the now split fish as veterinarians rushed to repair and sew up this unusual specimen.

Unfortunately for Captain Mayhem not only was half of Talos Island watching, but the rest of the world also. News of the giant fish had spread and now news cameras had a front row view of the hero coming out of this record sized bass while covered in fish goo and other assorted liquids. Siro sat by a news truck literally laughing as hard as he could as Captain Mayhem walked over to a beach shower to rinse the stuff off of himself.

"Hey fish bait! How was the ride?" He said as Cap just made a disgusted face at him.

"Man, this isn't even funny... you have any idea of what if smelt like in there? I don't think I'll ever be able to eat fish again... damn Superdine." Siro couldn't help but laugh as the two heroes sat on a nearby railing while shooting the breeze to the television cameras. Siro made sure to stay only as close to Cap as he had to to avoid the smell coming off of him.

After all the fuss of the media Cap started to ask something he had been thinking about. "Hey Squishy..."

"Sup fishbait?" Siro retorted prompting both men to laugh.

"You said you manipulate gravity in order to move as fast as you do right?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Siro asked curiously.

"Can you fly?" Cap asked wide eyed but trying to hide why. He wanted to sneak up on Siro one day in mid air.

"Naa, I don't do it like that... I can jump really high, but gravity always wins and I end up being drawn back to earth... But with my super speed sometimes it feels like I'm flying... always helps clear the head..." Cap imagined himself soaring through the air at Mach speed while chasing after some random villian. He quickly came down to earth as a vaguely familiar woman in a business suit started to approach him. The smell of the fish prompted a quick grin from the woman as she stared him in the eyes.

"Hey, you're Captain Mayhem right? I never got a chance to thank you before but I have a business proposal for you..."

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Note: Well, that's it for episode 4, let me know what you think of it... next time: The Creation of the PoC! Don't miss it...


	5. Episode 5: Destiny Within Reach part 1

Note: A fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhem is the main character others from my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty will make appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villains... although if I did I'd have some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that's some major bank. To be honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kind of depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention the time spent on getting him to level 50... but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn't reflect the gameplay or story in any way... just the fictional adventures of a character I made in a fictional world... does that make it a fictional account of actual events since the game is real?

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Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage

Episode 5: Destiny Within Reach (part 1)

It had been 2 weeks since the day of the big fish. As Captain Mayhem rolled over in his bed he replayed the events over in his head. The woman whom had approached him while he and Siro talked turned out to be the very first person he rescued in Paragon. Seeing him tear into that Hellion the way he did scared her to death but as the police and Backalley Brawler talked to her she calmed down and was eventually thankful for Cap's interference. She asked Brawler his name and made a mental note to herself to keep an eye out for him. The media coverage Cap received from capturing the mutated fish was all the push she needed to launch her plan.

She worked at a local law firm, and for a while they had been looking to back a small Supergroup. She saw Captain Mayhem on the news and immediately headed for Talos Island. Hoping that he'd remember her and be friendly she approached , unfortunately it wasn't until she recounted the events of their first encounter that Cap's memory was jarred.

Her name turned out to be Rebecca Macintosh and she hit Captain Mayhem with an offer he couldn't refuse. Her firm would pay for the registration, housing, food and mission fees for a group led by him. In turn, when needed the group would help getting evidence for their cases. When asked why they were willing to do so much she replied, "You're a star right now, and in a place like Paragon nothing helps business better than being affiliated with Heroes. Having one whom we can advertise is even better and since your face is all over the place, right now you're a hot commodity."

Cap didn't really know how to take that but he thought for a second... "Housing sounds nice... my apartment is okay, but it'd be nice to have somewhere I didn't have to sneak into." Having no source of income makes getting food though too so after a few minutes he agreed. In today's world where it was difficult to know who to trust even lawyers aren't as hardened as to trick a Hero into signing a contract full of loop holes and catches so a simple handshake was enough. Cap was told that she'd get in touch with him to give the full details of the agreement but she was happy to be in business with him

As she walked away he turned and looked at Siro who had a half smirk on his face. "So, you're the leader of a Supergroup now huh?" Siro said then let out a laugh. "Good luck with that."

Cap didn't really know what to expect and seeing as how they were becoming friends he figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. "How'd you like to be my Co-Leader?" He asked as Siro raised a single eyebrow and a smirk grew on his face.

Siro had been in another group for a while but he was slowly seeing less and less of them, in fact he wasn't so sure that the "group" still existed and Cap's offer was tempting. "Sounds good fish bait... I guess I'm in with you."

And that was the start of Cap's recruitment efforts. Aside from practicing how to fly it was really all he did lately. He and Siro were sent to find proof that one of the law firm's clients had in fact been robbed and was not committing insurance fraud for a case against their insurance company. It had turned out that some Hellions had broken in and taken almost everything they had, but the real kicker was that the client's son was the one who set everything up. He was an initiate and in order to prove his loyalty he basically had to betray his family.

Other than that his days had been pretty normal... for a hero that is. They'd even gotten a few people to join and were now 6 heroes strong. The base hadn't been set up yet so Cap was stuck here for the time being, but he was given some cash to go food shopping. One day while he was strolling through the supermarket he wondered how in hell he thought he could get away with a secret identity. Kids who saw him on television would run up and ask to see his claws, or if he could super speed, even if he was an alien.

At first he wondered how they knew it was him, but after seeing himself in a freezer door he realized that the red hair and third eye were pretty much a dead giveaway. While standing at the counter a rather attractive clerk kept staring at him. He wasn't sure exactly how to react but an awkward smile from her made him believe there was some attraction... and perhaps there was but when she covered up and asked if his third eye could see through clothes he pretty much gave up that idea.

At least back home the people had gotten used to him. Other than a new resident or someone from out of town visiting everyone around knew him. It wasn't that he was popular or anything but how do you forget a kid with a third eye? So after paying for his food he left out of the store without hesitation and thanks to his training, bounced back to his apartment.

He hadn't officially flown yet but he was able to push himself high into the air and slow his rate of decent to a level which could he called gliding, but as of yet had been unable to maintain a state of zero gravity. It made for some fun times racing with Siro through the city but he was never able to keep up.

As Cap got out of bed he stared around at the mess of dishes that was piling up and wondered why he didn't have the power to make things disintegrate. "Yeah, that would be very useful right now." he thought to himself as he searched through the fridge for something. "Ah... nothing like a can of peaches to get the hero juices flowing." he thought as he popped out his claws and opened the can before using them as a fork. "I wonder how sanitary this is" he thought for a second before shrugging it off. "Oh well, my immune system'll handle it."

It had become increasingly difficult to balance having a super immune system with a sensitive genetic system but there were some risks he was willing to take. After a shower he walked over to the closet where his new costumes were. After the other one ripped, Rebecca had set up a session for him with the tailor at Icon. He still had the red and white color scheme but the design was more original and not too shabby, at least he didn't look like a Longbow anymore. He had received his promotion to Protector of Innocents but still had some work to do before he could get a cape. This was an honor given to heroes at Keeper of Peace level or higher and from the way things were going, Siro was close to achieving this and Cap couldn't wait to get a cape of his own.

As he opened the window and leapt into the sky he headed for Atlas Park where they were supposed to be meeting Rebecca so she could take them to the new base. At the rate he could move now he didn't really need the monorail and only got on when he was tired; plus this was a good way of perfecting his flying technique... which at this moment seemed to be going along nicely. Cap was floating around nicely... change of direction, even a slight loop-de-loop, but he was still having trouble controlling himself and almost crashed into the war wall as he got near the Perez Park exit. As he landed on the ground he looked up at the massive blue force field which separates Paragon City into zones... yet another result of the Rikti and even though it had been a while since the assault Cap had noticed the effects all around Paragon.

Perez Park was a nesting ground for monsters called Igneous as well as some of the gangs. New heroes were constantly seen battling it out here to gain reputation but all made sure to stay away from the forest... it was literally a maze of trees at least fifty feet tall. He hadn't been here before the walls were put up but Cap imagined it had once been a beautiful area where people could sit back and relax in quiet amongst the giant buildings and busy streets of Paragon City. As Cap bounced the short way to the Atlas Park exit below he could see a blaster hurling electricity at a few of the Igneous and was prepared to swoop down and help. But as the stone creatures exploded into pieces he continued on his way as a loud "Yeah, blasted those suckers!" could be heard coming from the female hero below. It was a pretty funny site as she celebrated with a short dance and Cap couldn't help but smirk.

He was becoming more and more familiar with Atlas Park as he came here for weekly check ups with the doctors at G.I.F.T. This section of the city never disappointed when it came to seeing heroes in awkward situations. At the current moment there was a group crowded around a radio under Atlas' statue while not too far away a small group of heroes fled from some Clockwork. Cap hadn't become too familiar with them since his first day in Atlas but they were always good for a few laughs. However before he could react he watched as the whole group of tiny terrors was frozen solid. "Oh well" he thought as he continued to his destination.

When he reached the office building he saw Siro standing in the lobby with an unfamiliar hero. The new guy was about 4 foot five inches tall with a green armored suit which reminded Cap a lot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As Siro spotted him he quickly jumped up and approached. "Hey fish bait!" Siro almost yelled out getting attention and laughs from the nearby people.

"What's going on Siro?" Cap said curiously eying the stranger.

"Meet our newest member, Unrial..." Siro said as the new guy approached with his hand outstretched. The two shook hands and got a good eye full of each other as Siro made pressed the button for the elevator.

"Unreal huh?" Cap said as he kept eying the armor.

"Yeah, but you're probably thinking of it wrong, it's pronounced the same, but spelled 'R-I-A', not 'E-A', kind of a play on words... you'll see once you catch me in action. I've got a whole theme going on..." Cap couldn't tell but Unrial had a grin on his face.

"So that some kind of battle suit?" Cap asked his new acquaintance curiously. Unrial simply grinned behind his full face covering helmet and nodded.

"Something like that... but you'll find out soon enough."

Soon the doors opened and they were standing on the hall of a busy law office. Cubicles were spread out most closely resembling what Steel Canyon looks like from the sky with barely any space not covered by real estate. Captain Mayhem, Siro, and Unrial quietly walked through none of them actually knowing where they were headed with Siro clumsily leading the way. Finally one of the people in the hall spotted the trio and let Rebecca know that they were here. She walked to the door of her office and waved with a huge smile as they moved towards her.

"I'm glad to see you guys made it... this one of the new members?" she asked while looking at Unrial.

"Yeah, his name's Unrial and apparently that suit of his has some powers that I'm dying to see... so, what's the news on the base?"

She grinned as she walked over to a painting on the wall and lowered it to the floor before turning back towards the heroes. "We've got you guys all set up with a small place. It's not much more than a hangout right now but as time goes by who knows what can happen..."

Knowing the way things worked, especially with lawyers none of the three really seemed to mind. "So, where do we find this hangout?" Siro asked while imagining a room just for him all decorated with souvenirs from his adventures. "Siro's office is what I'll call it" he imagined to himself as Rebecca opened a safe that was cleverly hidden behind the painting.

"Well nowadays with villains and the media on the hunt for heroes constantly it's inconvenient for a Supergroup to have to actually travel to their base." She pulled out a box with little emblems on them and handed it to Captain Mayhem. "Those are your teleporters... You clip the pins on your costumes and when you need to, press the center. You'll automatically be teleported into the base. Likewise, if you're in medical trouble press the two outer edges and you'll be transported to the base medical bay. Simultaneously a doctor will be alerted and teleported to treat you. There are medi-pods for immediate treatment but more severe wounds will require a doctors attention."

Cap grinned to himself knowing that with his body's abilities he wouldn't be needing that much, but then looked over at Siro and thought to himself... "Heh... Squishy go splat."

Although he had slightly laughed out loud no one paid attention to Captain Mayhem instead Unrial had a question... "Just two questions please. First my suit is metal and I won't be able to pin the medallion onto myself. Secondly what's to keep them from getting knocked off during a fight?"

Rebecca already expecting a question like this was very prepared. "Nice questions... Unrial was it?" After receiving a nod she continued. "Well along with the pin on ones for cloth costumes there are also magnetic pins for those with more high tech needs. As for your second question these are all just temporary and in fact we have set up an account for your group with the ICON shops around Paragon City. As each hero becomes a registered member of your group your licenses will be automatically updated and when scanned in the shops everything that is needed along with your basic tailoring, including Supergroup colors and teleport badges, up on your account information. From there the new pins are grafted, or welded onto the costume itself and has been shown to be very hard to remove. Also after the first time you teleport into your base the computer registers your bio readings and from there you can use teleporters in most zones to get there without the badges. There's a lot of stuff to it that I can't really explain but that's the gist of it."

"Well thanks a lot for everything so far Rebecca." Siro said while trying to sneak the box out of Captain Mayhem's hands. "We'll try to make sure Fish Bait doesn't lose his, cause we know how clumsy he is."

Siro got a few laughs for that comment before Rebecca realized something... "So, you guys have a name yet?"

Siro and Cap looked blankly at each other before they came up with some excuse for having to leave. Not wanting to waste any time they quickly opened a nearby window and all three took to the sky. Siro leapt about a football field's length away landing on the roof of another office building as Cap and Urial followed closely behind.

"So I take it we don't have a name yet..." Unrial said as he joined Cap and Siro on the ledge of the roof top.

"A name? Who needs a name?" Cap joked as he tried to go through some of the ones in his head.

"The problem with that is... we don't want something cheesy like those old school heroes... and we don't want to have ones of those names that screams Sci-fi fanboy like the Middle Earth Avengers. But don't worry, our fearless leader is working on it!" Both guys turned to Cap as he looked about as lost as a deer caught in the headlights.

"Don't look at me... I'm the guy called Captain Mayhem... I'm bad with names." Forgetting about the name thing for now he opened up the box and handed out the teleporters. Curious as to exactly what they had going for them Cap pressed the center and before he knew it was standing in a plain grey hallway staring at a wall. Pretty soon Unrial and Siro were right beside him.

"Wow, this is it huh?" Siro was the first to say. "Well let's look around." There wasn't very much here, they had a small medical bay and rec room but most of the rooms were empty.

"Well I'm claiming one of these rooms as mine cause I need a place to stay" Cap said as the other two nodded.

"Poor Cap, forced to live in the empty base." Siro said with a slight laugh.

"Yeah, that's the problem man... poor Cap." Captain Mayhem added with a laugh of his own.

"Oh man, I almost forgot!" Unrial yelled as he suddenly remembered something. "Hey Cap can I have one of those badges? There's someone else that was supposed to join you guys with me. She's like my partner but likes to call herself my sidekick and I think she'd make a good fit."

Cap opened the box and let Unrial pick out what he needed. He quickly disappeared as Cap and Siro stood there alone. "Well Fish Bait I'm gonna head for Steel Canyon to get my new costume... you coming?"

"Naa I have to go see Brawler, he's got something for me he said." And with a quick nod Siro was gone. "Man... I really need to find out where this place is so I can get my stuff here." Cap thought to himself. "or maybe I could talk them into moving me into an apartment somewhere else... maybe Skyway... Yeah, No one could see me climbing in and out of a window there." and as quick as he had gotten here he was back in Atlas right under the big man's leg. There was a group of heroes having a costume contest which Cap had taken interest in but he knew that he had somewhere to be.

"Hey Cap!" he heard someone yell out. He looked around and saw Krome Dome speeding towards him.

"Krome... what's going on?" Krome Dome was once a normal person, or more normal than some. But sensing his herioc tendencies an all powerful cosmic entity transformed him into what he is now. His duty was to travel to distant planets and restore life to them, keeping the balance of life and death since things are destroyed in the universe a lot more than they are birthed. After many years traveling the galaxies it dawned on his superior that the planet which he had been sent from, Earth was among those in the greatest need of restoration. Now he had joined Captain Mayhem and Siro as their main source of healing since Teacher had gone AWOL.

"Just looking for something to do, and you?"

"Oh, just heading for Galaxy, I have to meet Backalley Brawler about something."

"Mind if I join you?" Krome asked with his silverish bald head shining in the sunlight.

"Be my guest." Cap said before suddenly standing at the gate to Perez Park. "But you've got to warn me before teleporting like that." Cap yelled as Krome laughed. But after a few seconds realized that he didn't have headaches the way he did with Highschool teacher. "That's weird, I wonder what it means."

Before long Captain Mayhem and Krome Dome were standing in front of the Freedom Corp building with Backalley Brawler walking towards them with a grin on his face. "What's going on Kid?" Brawler said while stretching out his arm for a handshake. He never failed to amuse Cap with the extremely tight grip he seemed to put extra effort into just to make sure it could be felt on those metal bones of his. "Ah, and you must be Krome Dome..."

Krome couldn't help but smirk from being recognized by one of the most well known heroes in a City full of them. "Backalley Brawler, it's an honor that you know who I am."

"Don't think too much of it, you'd have to be a jerk to not know the guy responsible for helping to keep the planet alive..." The comment surprised Cap and embarrassed Krome but seemed to be common knowledge among the elite. "Anyways I've got a present for you..." Brawler stated as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small medallion in the shape of a radioactive sign.

"What's this?" Cap asked curiously with a slight grin on his face.

"You kidding? This is the emblem for your Supergroup, seeing as how everywhere you go trouble seems to follow." None of the three could help but laugh as Cap took it in his hand and looked at it closely. "Hey, what's that on your costume?"

"Oh, it's the teleport pin we were given."

"Bah, you take that to the tailors and tell them to shape 'em like that... Shouldn't be too tough. So what's the name for the group?"

"We have a name?" Krome asked while staring down Cap.

"Naa not yet... but we're working on it." Cap said half embarrassed.

Brawler made one of those deep thought faces before rubbing his chin. "Well if you were Villains I'd call you Hazard Zone, but I don't think it fits you guys." After a short goodbye Cap and Krome caught up with Siro in Steel Canyon and gave the new emblem to the clerk to add to their records.

"So, what's the name of your group?" he asked as the heroes all looked at each other as the clerk quickly caught on. "Oh... one of those... Generic Supergroup 1673."

Siro laughed while Cap groaned and after all of them got fitted and chose their styles it was out into the city again. It was getting late in the afternoon and they sat around aimlessly on a building's ledge as they talked. "Another day in the life of a hero... man this is dull." Cap said while flicking a stray piece of rubble off of the ledge.

"Speak for yourself Fish Bait I had fun... even though we haven't done anything heroic... it was like a day off."

"Well you guys I have to meet up with A'Kasha... I'll catch you guys at the base later." And with that he was gone.

"I think I'll stretch my legs a bit too Cap... You coming along?" Captain Mayhem sighed at the absolute boredom but before too long he found himself racing Siro through Atlas Park.

As entertaining as this was Cap couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Where's the adventure... the world threatening plots? For a city full of danger Paragon was pretty dull. "Things can't stay this way forever can they?"

* * *

Note: And no they won't. I know this episode was slow but the next one should prove exciting as the newly formed Supergroup takes on their first mission... Saving a fortune teller. What news does she have for the up and coming heroes? Stay tuned to find out... I promise things won't be this dull again!... maybe... 


	6. Episode 6: Destiny Within Reach part 2

Note: A fan fic based off of my main on my home server (Liberty). Although Captain Mayhem is the main character others from my Super Group as well as some friends from Liberty will make appearances from time to time.

Disclaimer: You know the usual... I don't own any part of City of Heroes or Villains... although if I did I'd have some major bank because I did the math... and with 150,000 subscribers at $15.00 a month that's some major bank. To be honest I don't even own the character Captain Mayhem... which after thinking about it is kind of depressing because he's _uber_... I mean really... not to mention the time spent on getting him to level 50... but nonetheless this is all a work of my imagination, and although parts may be taken from the game this doesn't reflect the gameplay or story in any way... just the fictional adventures of a character I made in a fictional world... does that make it a fictional account of actual events since the game is real?

* * *

Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage 

Episode 6: Destiny Within Reach (part 2)

"Damn it, where is it?" Captain Mayhem yelled out as he threw clothing around his small apartment. He had just been alerted that the team had to assemble and meet in the base immediately but he couldn't find his transporter. "Bah, how does stuff like this always happen to me?" he thought to himself as he lifted up and looked under his bed for the small metallic emblem given to the team by Rebecca... then it dawned on him "I'm wearing my new costume, the emblem is sewn onto it... damn I'm slow."

And in an instant he was standing in a room with Siro, Unrial, Krome Dome, A'kasha and another female he wasn't familiar with, but seemed to recognize all staring at him. "Ah you made it Cap!" Siro said with a few laughs coming from the others. "I'd figured you lost your teleporter by now."

Cap grinned, knowing that was exactly what almost happened, before responding, "You know me Squishy, I like to be fashionably late." He then turned and looked at Unrial while gesturing towards the new girl. "I'm guessing that's your friend Un."

Quickly she jumped up and presented herself. "Jessinator reporting for duty Captain SIR!" she proclaimed loudly and energeticly, prompting a big smile from everyone in the room. Cap looked at Un who just shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly he remembered where he had seen her before.

"Wait, were you fighting Igneous in Perez yesterday?" He asked which prompted a wide eyed nod from the spunky blaster.

"Yeah, I fried those suckers." she said proudly. Krome Dome walked away from A'kasha for a second to address Cap. The two of them had been dating ever since one day when A'kasha walked into a bar. Suddenly her eyes were drawn to a dark corner where a bright light illuminated from around Krome Dome. Intrigued she moved towards him. As she got closer though she realized it was nothing but a ceiling lamp being reflected by his bald head, but she spoke to him anyway. They've been near inseparable since.

"We have to get moving Cap." Krome said directly to him.

"Oh yeah..." Siro added in, "... we got a call from Rebecca, turns out that the firm sometimes uses the help of a fortune teller with their high risk cases. From what we hear she's extremely accurate if you can get through the riddles." Noticing Siro was starting to get off subject Unrial finished the briefing.

"She's gone missing and they have a feeling the Circle of Thorns is behind it." Cap hadn't run into the Circle of Thorns but every hero has heard the horror stories... soul swapping, secret rituals, summoning evil spirits and beasts... they had finally made it big time!

"Cool, so what are we still doing here?" Cap asked with a big grin on his face, "And where's the other guys?"

"We're waiting for one of Krome's contacts to get get back in touch with us, they should be able to locate her for us. And Pluto and the others went off for something else, not sure what it was about though." Unrial said.

"I'm getting bored, can we go beat something up now?" Jess asked while pouting.

"So what's the deal with you two Un?" Cap asked with grins forming all around.

"I'm Unrial's sidekick, and he's badass!"

As Cap thought about it he realized that he hadn't seen Unrial in action. Hopefully the six of them would be enough to handle the Circle but magic wasn't exactly Cap's forte. "Anyone know what they took her for?"

"Who knows" A'kasha spoke. "The Circle of Thorns aren't like the Hellions or the Outcasts. The things they do usually have something to do with something mystical and it doesn't look like anyone here is even slightly magical." she said while looking around at the group.

Sure they had a few short comings, but Cap was sure they'd be able to make it... how bad could it really be? Just then Krome Dome had a thought flash through his mind... "I know where they are."

Perez Park... not the greatest place in the world but perfect if you're a villian looking for a place to hide. As Cap and the team walked through the woods fighting large creatures of ooze called Hydra they each secretly cursed the Cirlce of Thorns for picking such a rotten place to nest. Siro took off ahead of the team as a scout while Un worked his own brand of magic to keep the enemies occupied. They were all pretty safe under his invisibilty shield except for the few who got too near the group but with the fire power they had with them the fights were pretty one sided. The group finally found the entrance to the cave and gathered around it.

"Damn, a barrier!" Jessinator yelled out while Krome Dome grinned.

"It's nothing to worry about. My friend is going to buy us the time we need to get in... but when the barrier comes down they're going to know we're here. We'll need to split up to find her fast but we'll also be vulnerable to the numbers." Krome Dome said while working up a plan in his head.

"I could take one group with me under my invisibility." Unrial said while Jessinator celebrated the genious of her mentor.

"Heh, guess that makes me and squishy here the decoys..." Captain Mayhem said while rubbing his fists. "You up for it Squishy?"

"Any time fish bait." Siro said with a competitive look on his face.

"I'll come with you guys, just in case you get in trouble... plus if I feel things getting bad I can teleport the whole team to each other." Krome Dome said as he let the voice in his head know that they were ready. But at the same time he thought to himself, "If only the Circle didn't have all these tricks I could just teleport her to us. Now that I think about it I hope these fields don't keep me from staying in contact with the team..."

But before he could say anything the field was down and the little supergroup filed into the cave as quickly as they could. The faster they got in the less likely it would be that they got noticed, but Krome Dome's hesitation might have been the few moments the Circle of Thorns needed to recognize the threat. The barrier closed behind them and now the only light they had was provided by the torches spaced out along the stoney walls. Large glowing crystals of varying colors could be seen every now and then but Cap didn't want to imagine what they were for.

"Hey Cap, those things are weapons of the Circle." Siro recounted stories he had heard. "Some of them hurt you when you get too close, but others are used to heal the Circle members. The only thing about them is it can't tell who's who so the bad ones can hurt the Circle and the good ones can help us."

"That's nice to know" Captain Mayhem said as the closed in on a group of Life Mages and Guards. The guards are the cloaked members of the Circle of Thorns and wield only low level magic. Looking at them illuminated by the dim light of the torches Cap could only think about sorcerers during the middle ages conjuring up some spell for a no good reason. The Life Mages have mastered the art of using life force to hurt heir foes. One wrong move and a hero could find all of their essence sucked out of them as their body fell lifelessly to the ground.

But Captain Mayhem and Siro had the perfect weapon for that... Krome Dome. Although unable to use his powers to hurt people he was more than capable of keeping people, and things alive and was the perfect counter to the Life Mages.

Meanwhile Unrial, Jessinator and A'kasha were moving along rather smoothly with Jess and Kasha having to fry a few of the Circle every now and then but Cap and Siro were providing a very good decoy. Un had guessed they figured Krome Dome was the one who shut down the barrier and brought his brutish friends to do the dirty work for him. He snickered at the though of them sneaking through unnoticed to save the day.

It was hard to tell though that Jess would suddenly get bored and zapped an Air Thorn Caster with her electricity. The only bad part being that Air Thorn Casters are very adept at wielding electricity and wind. The angry sorcerer turned around wielding his sword and sensing the electric currents running through both Jessinator and A'kasha charged towards his enemies. Thinking fast Unrial summoned and illusion trying to confuse the Caster and buy them time to get way.

"Fool, do you think these cheap tricks would work on me?" The Air Thorn Caster asked while summoning a huge gust of wind. May the walls be covered with your flesh!" He yelled as the three of them were being forced against the side of the cave with steadily increasing force.

"You're not the only one with a few tricks!" A'kasha yelled out as she used her other ability to control the flame on the torch behind him and in a matter of seconds the Sorcerer was screaming as his clothes caught fire and it soon spread.

On the other side of the cave Captain Mayhem and the rest could hear the screams of the Sorcerer and some of the mob started to turn back. Krome Dome attempted to teleport Un's group to him but as he feared the magical fields in the cave blocked his powers. "I'm going to go see what's going on, will you guys be okay?" He asked as Cap and Siro looked at each other and grinned.

"Go ahead, we'll be okay." Siro said as he stood back to back with Cap before taking off in a blaze of speed. The Life Mages surrounding them all started to groan and drop one by one while Captain Mayhem pulled the arrows out of his flesh and sliced into the wrists of a nearby Guard.

In an instant Krome was together with the other group as Jessinator blinked to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "You guys okay?" Krome asked while looking at A'kasha.

"You just want some attention don't you?" A'kasha snapped back at him with a grin on her face. "You'd just love to have to bail me out wouldn't you?"

"Not really." Krome said while thinking over the situation then remembering the group heading towards them. "We have to move there's some headed here."

"Well let them come, we're ready, we can take em." Jess said while suddenly feeling an extra surge of energy.

"Get moving..." Unrial said while he shot a strange light at everyone in the group. "I just gave you all a jolt of kinetic energy, we should all be able to move faster, lets find that fortune teller and get to Cap fast. Just as he said that Krome remembered the Life Mages and attempted to teleport back towards the group but something was blocking him. His only guess was the high concentration of them in a small spot created some sort of barrier.

"Shit, Siro and Cap are alone... let's hurry this up... any clue on where she is?" The group sped through the caves invisibly sneaking past their enemies as they searched for the intruders. They all tried to gather their breath as suddenly they realized they had gone down the wrong tunnel...

"You having as much fun as me Cap?" Siro asked as he slashed across the throat of a Thorn Caster with his dull bladed sword. Those were the elite guards of the Circle and are usually exceptional in hand to hand combat, but in this case they found themselves slightly overwhelmed.

"Hard to have fun when I can't slash anything..." Cap said while fighting off three of the guards as they shot their dark energy at him. Fortunately he was able to dodge the energy and it hit and nearly fried one of their own. The numbers were quickly catching up to Siro and Captain Mayhem when Siro grabbed Cap by the arms and spun around quickly in a circle. Cap thought he had done damage before, but now his metal legs were crashing into the bones of the Circle and bought them enough time for Siro to take off dragging Captain Mayhem along.

"Heh, bet those guys won't get that close again." Siro said to a dizzy Captain Mayhem.

"Whatever... just slow down... I'm dizzy as hell." Cap said as Siro let out a slight laugh. The two of them quickly tried to catch their breath as the neared a large wooden door.

"That looks suspicous." Siro thought to himself as Captain Mayhem kneeled over holding his head. His third eye was spinning as he stumbled around before leaning onto a wall.

"Could you warn me next time? I have a hard enough time keeping up when I'm not feeling like I'm gonna throw up." Siro grinned to himself.

"Getting soft on me Cap?" Siro said as Captain Mayhem rubbed his bruised legs.

"As a matter of fact..." Suddenly, he was caught off guard by the sounds coming from where they had just come from, before hearing Jess yell out "Take that suckers!"

The main group was now finding themselves to be in a big heap of trouble and Krome was having trouble keeping the Life Mages under control. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a blur of blue he knew to be Siro tearing through the large crowd of Circle of Thorns. Cap followed closely behind slashing his way through until the whole team was now together again.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Cap asked with a grin on his face as Kasha and Jess tried their best to hold back the mob.

"A hell of a mission we're on, huh Cap?" Unrial said as he did his best to use his suit to buff the group with kinetic energy.

"There's always trouble when you're with Cap!" Siro yelled out as he continued to beat his way through the horde of enemies and was now dual wielding his swords. Meanwhile Krome couldn't do anything but watch as a large black sphere opened over the group and everyone's moves started to get slower and slower. He spotted a Death Mage, the most powerful of all the Circles's sorcerers behind the larger crowd moving his hands as he spun a ball of death to suck the energy right out of the heroes. Krome Dome being the end result of an infinite being he was in no immediate danger but he was having trouble keeping his allies safe. And then it happened; he could slowly feel the life draining out of himself, but he refused to go out like this.

Krome Dome dug deep willing himself and his friends to continue fighting as Kasha gathered all the flame from all the torches and increased it's size to that of something you could only imagine in dreams. The heat from it cause all of them to sweat as she flung down at the Death Mage. But, just as Cap had seen done before the life whittled out of the fire before it could find it's target and almost all hope seemed lost.

But Krome Dome would not give up... he kept digging deeper and deeper keeping his whole team alive as Captain Mayhem and Siro swung away with all their might sending Thorn after Thorn to a temporary state of sleep. But as hard as they fought there was a constant flow of more on the way. And then it happened. Not knowing how, but being awestruck even as he felt it crawling out from inside him Krome Dome exploded in a surge of energy, pinning all of his enemies against the walls and even killing some. But none were left conscious as Krome Dome fell to his knees.

"What the hell was that?" Cap said while looking at Krome who was obviously spent.

"I... have no clue... honestly I don't even know how it happened." Krome said looking tired and confused himself.

"Heh, so the bald guy finally decides to fight huh?" A'kasha said as she knelt down next to and grinned at Krome Dome.

"I guess so" He replied as he struggled to his feet.

"You guys just wait here." Siro said to Unrial, A'kasha, Krome Dome and Jessinator. "I think Fish bait and me found out where they're holding the fortune teller... We'll go check it out and be right back, take care of Krome."

Jess looked at Un who nodded in agreement while looking around at the bodies of the Circles of Thorns tossed around the room. "That was incredible." He said to Krome who just developed a slight smile in return. "But I really think we should move to another room... maybe towards the entrance."

He along with A'kasha helped Krome Dome to his feet and they all started walking towards the exit. At about the same time Captain Mayhem and Siro reached the large door once again.

"I don't see a doorknob... do you?" Captain Mayhem asked Siro. Siro looked around and knocked on the wooden door with the hilt of his sword before leaning against it and dropping to the ground.

"No... no fishbait I don't... but I'm tired so I'm gonna sit here while you go Paul Bunyan on it."

Cap was happy to put his claws to use so he forced them out before punching straight into the door with his right hand. He pulled back and repeated a few times before retracting his claws and kissing his fist... "Ow... I got a splinter... damn Circle of Thorns and their stupid shit!" Cap said as he kicked the remains of the door until it burst open. There they saw a young woman, not exactly what they expected but with a look of wisdom in her eyes. She smiled at both of them as for a moment they were both surprised at how attractive she was.

"I've been expecting you." She said with a soft voice that seemed to belong to a person much older than she appeared.

"Us?" Siro said as he stood while looking around the room she was held captive in.

"Yes, you Siro, and you, Captain Mayhem. You and your friends are those who prevent carnage on this world. Shall we get going?"

As they traveled back towards the entrance they talked, and the more they talked to her the more they were sure she was older than she appeared. "The Circle... they're up to some serious dark things. They try to awaken that which has not stepped foot on this plane in ages. They sought knowledge... but I trust you all have halted their schemes for now... that silver friend of yours if I remember correctly."

"Who exactly are you?" Siro asked inquisitively. But she simply smiled at him and posed a question of her own.

"Who are any of us... but if it is a name you require you may call me Cynthia... as for you Siro... do you know who you are?"

Siro was slightly amused by the question and he laughed a little bit before answering. "Of course I know who I am... I am me after all..."

"Ah... that you are... but an encounter with things from your past will force you to reconsider all that you know."

Siro stopped dead in his tracks while looking at her and his face almost went pale... he knew there was things he was running from... things he was running towards... but what exactly did she mean?

"You okay Squishy?"Cap said as he looked back towards Siro then towards Cynthia.

"You too must ponder who you are Captain Mayhem. For you will come face to face with yourself. And if you do not stop you... I fear to ponder what what may happen."

"Wha... what are you talking about?" Cap asked while looking at her curiously.

"Who you are!" she said while walking towards him and placing her finger just above his third eye. "Stay true to who you are or all may be lost."

Cap felt a slight moment of knowledge when she touched him but just as quickly he was lost again. Siro finally regained his composure and the three of them walked quietly back towards the rest of the group. When they reached the room with all of the Circle of Thorns they suddenly found themselves face to face with Krome Dome.

"So, this the fortune teller?" He asked while looking at an emotionless Siro and Cap who didn't seem surprised from the teleporting.

"Yes, you may call me Cynthia." she said to him while smiling at A'kasha. "Ah... you two..." she said before drifting off into her own head then directing her words directly at Krome Dome. "There is a great power within you but you must believe in order to draw it out..."

"Ooooh... free readings?" Jess said excitedly as Cythia then gazed upon Unrial.

"You too are stronger than you believe... in a moment when strength is lost you shall find it within yourself." She said to a surprised Unrial. Beneath his helmet he was actually blushing.

"Hey! What about me? I want a reading too!" Jess said with her hands on her hips.

"Ah, dear Jessinator... I'm afraid I have nothing to tell you cause you know who you are..."

"I do? Oh, I mean...Damn right!" Jess replied as she broke out into a victory dance. "What are we just standing around here for? Let's go!"

After the barrier disappeared Krome Dome teleported them all to the Atlas gate. Unrial and Jessinator offered to escort the Fortune Teller home as the rest of them split up after saying their goodbyes. The last two standing there were Captain Mayhem and Siro and neither of them said much for a while.

"Hey Fish Bait..." Siro said breaking the silence.

"Yeah squishy?" Cap asked trying to hide the wonder in his voice.

"What do you make of what she was saying?" Siro asked with one eyebrow raised.

"I'm not really sure... but I think we found our group's name..."

* * *

Note: That's it for Episode 6!. Stay tuned for one shots and spinoffs. In fact Siro now has one it isn't my work but it's pretty interesting... I'd give it a run through. Catch you later! 


	7. Episode 7: Warm Chill

Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage

Episode 7: Warm Chill

Laying on the small bed set up in the Supergroup base Captain Mayhem tossed and turned from the visions he was having. Constant crying and pain surged through his mind and finally an intense feeling of hatred woke him out of his slumber and he was drenched in a cold sweat. He was starting to get used to it... the whole city was. It had been almost five days since it was first reported that most of the people in Paragon were having these nightmares. Heroes had started investigating, believing it to be of magic or psychic origin but so far no progress had been made.

Our hero slowly gets out of the bed and drags himself into the rec room where Jessinator and Pluto Power are seen watching television. Both look tired and as Jess spots Capt she gives a slight smile while slowly nodding off. He nods back to her and stands behind the both of them to get a view of the reports. "Nothing yet?" he asked to whoever would answer.

"Naa, not yet... I'm getting tired man how you holding up?" Pluto looked up at Cap and the tip of his hat, which could only be described by referring to the ones witches wore in the old movies, got wrapped around the back of the couch without anyone noticing.

"I'm okay, but the headaches... they won't go away." Cap said while rubbing his temples.

"Well I feel for you... I don't know whats going on but for your sake I hope it ends quickly." And as Pluto lowered his head back towards the television his hat came off revealing a bad case of hat hair. He quickly grabbed it and tossed it back on as Cap looked on.

"Heh, me too." Captain Mayhem responded with a little grin. Unfortunately for the face of the newly formed Supergroup whatever causes the dreams seems to have side effects on some people, and he's one of them. It all started the day he and Siro went to officially register the group...

"Hmm... wonder where he is..." Cap said while standing at the steps of Freedom Corps. once again, and much like last time there was a feeling of anxiety. He looked around keeping his eyes on the sky and without even knowing it began tapping his feet at a quick pace.

"What's up Fishbait?" A voice from behind him asked.

"Heh... so he snuck up behind me... not bad." The now relaxed hero thought to himself. "Bout time Squishy... you ready?"

Siro nodded and the two of them headed in. They had finally agreed on a name thanks to Cynthia the fortune teller, and the firm thought that it had a heroic ring to it so it was approved. The two stepped in and Cap caught a glance of that jaded receptionist from before. Siro spotted Jack Wolfe, a famous hero whom he was familiar with and signaled to Cap that he was going to talk to him while Cap handled the registration.

"Yes sir, may I help you?" The man said before looking up. After seeing the face of and remembering the man in front of him he grinned to himself before stating "Have you learned to read yet sir? This is for registering _SUPER GROUPS _not heroes."

Captain Mayhem, amused that this guy could actually tell a joke laughed a little before answering. "Yeah, they brainwashed me at City Hall so I can handle that stuff now... I'm here to register my group."

"Heh, this guy is the leader of a group? Wonder what suckers he got to follow him." The receptionist thought to himself while typing in something on the computer in front of him. "Captain Mayhem right?"

"Yeah, surprised you know who I am." Cap said while thinking that maybe he was really becoming a celebrity.

"Oh, I saw you getting cut out that fish and it's hard for me to forget a face... Ah, Generic Supergroup 1673... correct?"

"I really don't like this guys attitude." Cap thought before nodding.

"Okay, so what's the new name?" he asked while deleting the old one.

"The Preventers of Carnage." The 3 eyed hero answered while remembering the words of the fortune teller.

"A-G-E... hmmm... you sure about that?" The receptionist answered while moving the glasses up on his face.

"What's wrong with the name?" Cap watched as he turned the screen towards him and caught a glimpse of the names on the list. "The Preventers, Preventers of Misfortune, Child Abuse Preventers, Calamity Preventers... the list went on and on. "Ah, I see what you mean..." Cap said while trying to figure out an answer to the problem. He really didn't consider something like this and everyone liked the name... but it was starting to seem too... generic.

"Spell it with an "O" a voice both people recognized stated. Cap turned around to see the Backalley Brawler standing behind him. The receptionist was looking at him for approval and after getting the nod from Cap typed it in. "Heh, Preventors because nothing you do is normal kid." The Brawler said with a laugh.

"What's going on Brawler. What are you doing in here?" He said while shaking hands with his pseudo-mentor.

"I saw you heading in here and had something for you..." Brawler reached in his pocket and pulled out a small black box with silver colored lining. "When I heard it was time I wanted to make sure you got this from me..."

Siro spotted the box in Brawlers' hand and recognized the design. He got Jack Wolfe to point his attention in that direction and the old vet grinned. "Another pup gets his fangs huh?"

"Oh man... really?!" Cap seemed to be calm on the outside but on the inside he was jumping and leaping and yelling at the top of his lungs. It was right around then that the headaches started...

"Oh shit kid you okay? It's just a badge...kid?" The sudden pain disoriented the young hero and he suddenly collapsed over the receptionist's desk but maintained consciousness.

Unknown to him, at the same time other heroes around the city began to show symptoms. Sonic Bird suddenly found herself uncontrollably crying whenever she tried to use her powers, accompanied by all the feelings of anguish and fear. A body guard at Crey industries seemed to have lost his mind and used his Voltaic Tank suit to destroy the 42nd floor of the expensive Brickstown Headquarters. Several other heroes found themselves laying in shallow graves that they seemed to have dug themselves while one unlucky telepath's psyche seemed to have reverted to infancy.

It had been a long 5 days for everyone else in Paragon but for these heroes, our bizarre protagonist included it had been hell. Most of the members of the PoC had gone out with various other groups, many of those claimed one of the other severely effected heroes and were intent on stopping whatever was happening to their friends. Jess and Pluto had decided to stay behind in case Cap needed help but right about now they were both worn out.

"Hey guys, I'm gonna go out for some fresh air okay?" Captain Mayhem said while walking towards the one room in the base that allows teleportation. It's mainly a security measure to prevent unwanted people from getting in - and those who do can only get in from that one spot making capture easy.

"Want some company? Pluto asked while getting up, the sudden movement cause him to yawn and Cap shook his head to say no."

"Screw that I'm coming!" Jessinator announced, but after rushing to her feet she found it difficult to stay on them and sat back down. "Heh, guess I'm tireder than I thought." Cap grinned and thanked her anyway before going on his way.

He stood on the roof of some tall building in Skyway City, his feet dangling from the edge, thinking about what these dreams might mean. It felt like someone was trying to accomplish something but the thoughts were incoherent. But the thing that scared him that most people, except maybe those other unfortunate heroes, was that the headaches were getting stronger.

"Bah, this shit isn't gonna do me any good... I need to get some air under my feet." And with that thought he dove from the rooftop hundreds of feet about the city. The effects of the nightmares had slowed his development but his flying did improve a little; between the roof top he dove off of and the one he stood on, which were about three hundred yards apart, he had only lost about 20 feet of height.

"Not bad Cap, not bad." he said to himself as he ran and jumped off the tower gliding about another 300 yards before coming to a running stop on yet another building. He was enjoying his little retreat from the stresses of super heroing when about half a mile away he spotted the red and blue light of maybe six police cars. Cap sat on the roof paying close attention to what was going on but because of his condition decided to stay out of it for now.

"Hurry up, those damn cops don't take long and you know the capes are gonna be showing up soon." Frostfire commanded his subordinates. With hardly anyone getting sleep now was a good time for a heist... most heroes would be off their game but it would still be dumb to sit here and wait. The Outcasts with him stuffed the money into the briefcases and quickly sealed them with stone. "Okay, we're gonna make a run for it, Bricks (earth users) make a wall at the door with holes just big enough for our guys to attack, Scorchers set those damn cars on fire, Shockers (air and electricity) take that cash and get the hell out..." As each Shocker picked up a case he froze it to their hand for extra protection while they let a small surge of electricity keep their nerves from freezing. All in all it was a well thought out, perfectly coordinated plan using each class of thug to maximize their strengths.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" With that a large gush of wind pushed the bank doors open causing some of the cops outside to stumble, almost instantly a large wall of stone emerges from nowhere to shield the villains followed by explosions from all over. In the confusion each person with a suitcase takes off in different directions while their leader, Frostfire made sure the rest of his guys got away.

Captain Mayhem couldn't see much from his position but when the first car exploded he knew he couldn't just sit there anymore. "Oh well, I ain't dead yet." he thought to himself before taking off.

The last Brick was taking off when Capt finally arrived on the scene. "Don't think you're gonna get away from me!" He shouted out as he released his claws and dove on to the back of the crook.

"Cap-i-tan! It's me!" he head the deep rocky voice exclaim, but didn't stop his attack until he saw the armor of a hero he knew, Steel Toe.

"Oh shit... my bad Steel... what's going on?" Cap said in surprise and embarrassment as the large armored hero resealed himself in his granite armor and took off slowly down the street. They had met a few weeks ago and Steel seemed like a pretty good guy.

"Outcasts robbed the bank, there's another guy over there fighting off a few of them..."

Cap looked to his left a few blocks away to see a man in purple and white battle armor taking on two Bricks and a Freezer all by himself. He and Steel hurried on to the scene but before they could get there Steel Toe found his legs frozen to the street.

"Where the hell you think you going?" Frostfire asked while playing with a large flame. Once he got it to a size he desired he tossed it at the two heroes before taking off. Cap dove behind Steel Toe who increased the density of his stone armor just before getting hit.

"Thanks man." Cap said to the giant hero in front of him while trying to get a trace of Frostfire.

"No problem, not like I had a choice, but at least now I can move... you go after him I'll help this guy."

"Heh, nothing like roasting a few heroes to make a day complete." Frostfire thought to himself. But somehow he couldn't get over the irony of it all. It had been 18 years ago but it felt like another lifetime. Leonard Calhoun had grown up in Paragon City and there was no one with a stronger sense of justice. After developing his powers he decided to try his hand at super heroing. Looking back it now he wonders how he could have been so naïve or so sloppy.

While trying to stop a robbery he accidentally froze both the robber, and the store owner being robbed. Not having and real training, the stress from trying to safely free this innocent person caused his powers to spasm. The sudden gush of energy increased the intensity of his heat so much that he set the building on fire. He remembered being there not knowing what to do and panicking as the ceiling started to collapse in on him.

He escaped without harm but when he found out that not only had the robber died, but so had the store owner and residents of the building he turned himself in. He understood why he was arrested but didn't understand why he had to do time... it was an accident, he tried his best but things happened that he couldn't control. The prosecutor pretended to understand and claimed that the offer of five years was lenient, but there was no way in hell a jury would convict.

Or so he thought. The trial didn't last long and when the guilty verdict was read his heart sank. "How, how could something like this happen? It wasn't my fault, I was trying to stop a crime things just went wrong." Unable to cope with what had happened he decided to act the way everyone treated him, like a monster... and thus Frostfire was born. He escaped jail during transport to the Zig in Brickstown and quickly made a name for himself. The Outcasts were all elemental powered kids who decided to follow him, and soon they were one of the biggest gangs in Paragon, if not the one with the most raw power.

As he used his cold powers to freeze the air around him and create a slide back towards Hollows a red and orange blur darted in front of him. "That cape!" he thought to himself, "Looks like I get to do it up close and personal." He said as he used a burst of heat to propel himself straight into the chest of the unsuspecting hero.

It wasn't hard to find where Frostfire had gone for Cap because the trail of falling ice was all he needed. The headaches slowed him down a little but it wouldn't be hard to catch up. "There he is!" the hero thought to himself as he spotted the light blue skinned villain making his way back towards the war zone of Hollows, if he got there it might be hard to catch him because of all the villain groups.

As Capt darted in front of him he never expected the guy to come diving at him head first. Both of them went falling and Capt landed on a rooftop about 50 feet below where he had been hovering. He spit out a little blood but knew it wouldn't hurt him for long and quickly went back to looking. Frostfire on the other hand was rolling on a rooftop wondering what the hell this guy was made of. He's lucky he used a sheet of ice to try to increase the damage or his skull may have been cracked. He sat on the roof trying to regain his composure when the hero jumped in front of him again. "Damn this guys' like a bad date, won't go away quick enough." Frostfire started to build up his heat for an attack but was still dizzy so he couldn't react fast enough when Cap rushed at him with a hard punch to the jaw.

Frostfire instinctively reached to his face and chilled the spot to the point of numbing the pain. "Damn he hits hard, he have super strength or something?" Frosty thought to himself as he tried to plan a counter attack. He covered his fists in ice and charged at the hero at a decent speed. He watched his foe take a stance and once he got within about ten feet of the hero he flung the ice from his fists directly at him and increased the speed with a burst of heat.

"Damn this guy is good." Cap said as he brought out his claws and sliced through the blocks of ice. Frostfire just stood back in awe as his opponent just brought out six big ass metal claws... from his hand! There didn't seem to be any devices or anything... what the hell was this guy? Fortunately for Frostfire he believed in the old phrase "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day." That head on collision threw him off and if this kept going he might end up worse off than he is now. Letting a hero get a quick victory is no biggie, they still got away with the cash, no way they caught up to the Shockers.

"This guy is taking off... damn" Cap thought to himself as he tried as best he could to keep up with the now flying block of ice. It was about another half mile to Hollows and the speed, control, and lack of both on his part made the pursuit difficult for Cap. Finally as Frostfire dove under a bridge, Cap decided to land on and when Frosty came up Cap jumped about fifty feet in front of him surprising the temperature controlling villain.

"Damn he's gonna dive at me." Frostfire thought to himself as Cap turned around to face him before rushing ahead. "I'm going too fast to get out of his way well and if I shoot heat at him it'll throw me off... he goes right through the ice... damn" He decided he had no choice but to wait for an opportunity as he reinforced his body with ice to cushion an incoming blow. But suddenly Captain Mayhem grabbed his head in pain and fell to the street below. He was screaming out in pain and for a second Frostfire thought about helping him.

"Damn, hard to shake off old habits." He said before landing in front of the agonizing hero. "Well, sorry it has to end this way, it was fun... but at least you won't be in pain for much longer."

People nearby who had heard the screams were rushing out to see what happened. But when the screams stopped just as suddenly as they started no one knew what to expect. It was when the first hero arrived on the scene that it was discovered Captain Mayhem had been frozen solid... but it was the agonizing look and the frozen tears that could almost make those watching feel his pain that hurt the most.

* * *

Wow right? Well we all know this isn't the end but it's the journey that builds us not the destination am I correct? Check in next time to see where the next stage takes good ole Cap. 


	8. Episode 8: Developments

Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage

Episode 8: Developments

(Author's Notes: When we last left Cap he had just been frozen solid by FrostFire, this picks up from there, enjoy! By the way, this is the first draft, it's being proofread as we speak but I couldn't wait any longer. It's been long enough anyway hasn't it?)

* * *

"Oh shit, Cap-i-tan..." were the words muttered by Steel Toe as he arrived on the scene, there were a few heroes and many civilians gathered around the now frozen body body known as Captain Mayhem. Sniffles could be heard coming from the crowd as some of the people began crying, it was always a sad day when a hero fell in Paragon.

Steel Toe lowered his head and began wondering how things would have been different if he had been able to help. Astro Glider, the hero that had been with him against the Outcasts saw the look on his face and immediately approached the stone titan. "Don't even start doing that to yourself man... anything could have gone wrong and there isn't a hero in Paragon who doesn't know the risks." Steel understood the words but still couldn't help but feel like there was something he could have done.

"Hey, get this spot clear, get all of these people out of here!" A Longbow yelled as he lowered on to the scene. He glimpsed upon the victim and shuddered. Then suddenly after getting a better look at who it was something clicked inside his head, "Hey, isn't this one of the heroes that showed side effects of the nightmares?" he asked to a nearby hero in a costume which closely resembled the way vampires are depicted in movies.

"_I don't know, one person's momentary suffering doesn't usually grab my attention. The spiritual balance of the whole city is off so I don't have time to catch the news..."_ "

The Longbow rolled his eyes as he thought "Poor guy... first that now this...". More Longbow started to arrive on the scene and pretty soon they found someone who could melt the ice. Everyone stood back as the new recruit placed his hands on the block of ice and started to systematically speed up the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. When the block of ice was starting to drip apart one mourning observer happened to notice the most unexpected thing.

She just so happened to be mapping out Cap's face in her mind, trying to figure out exactly how he may have felt before the end. Some people found it hard to look him in the face, but she had always considered herself weird like that. While looking him in the eyes she was suddenly shocked and gasped out loud. Everyone in the crowd looked at her and all she could do was point. "It blinked!"

The heroes closest to the scene stared hard until one of them commented, "Naa she's crazy I don't see anything." This comment prompted everyone to once again look at the young woman.

"It did, I swear, his third eye blinked." The heads once again turned toward the defrosting Captain Mayhem each one looking for some sign of life.

"What third eye?" Another person commented.

Hardly being interested in what was going on Steel Toe tried not to listen to the paranoid going-ons behind him... but then he heard it... "What third eye?" He quickly found a burst of energy and ran to the front of the crowd. It didn't take long for him to notice it either... the eye was definitely closed. The Longbow that arrived first on the scene noticed also.

"There's no way that eye was closed when I got here... it was one of the main reasons I recognized him." he yelled out loud... and suddenly the frenzy began. The chatter among the civilians got so loud that the heroes had to yell in order to get their words heard, every hero capable of chipping away even a tiny piece of ice started smashing against, blasting away, and in the case of one beastly looking creature- licking the ice while a nearby telepathic tried to contact him.

She closed her eyes and went deep into her own mind before reaching out to Cap. But once she made contact those nearby heard her quickly grunt and she fell down grabbing her head. "He's in a lot of pain." She said with tears coming down her face. "GET HIM OUT OF THERE!" She screamed while wiping tears from her eyes.

As soon as the ice got thin enough the screams could be heard and everyone not helping the thawing process stopped. The female telepath rushed through the crowd to get to him and tried her best to block the pain from his mind. The piercing cold of the ice caused his body to adjust and his skin was now pitch black in an attempt to draw in as much heat as possible. A few people gasped at the sight, but upon hearing their thoughts in her head the young female telepath lashed out. It seemed that her link with him had made her more sensitive to the thoughts of those around her and as Steel Toe approached to try to calm her down she simply turned her back to him and looked at Cap intently.

Eventually the screams stopped and he faded off into a deep sleep. "I think we should take him somewhere to make sure he's okay..." The head Longbow said to the group of heroes who felt most responsible for his well being.

"I think we should take him to his Super Group's base... maybe they'd know what to do with him there." Steel Toe added as almost everyone around nodded.

"Well I'm going too... I want to make sure he's okay... if you had felt what I felt..." the telepath said as she fought back tears. Nobody seemed to mind as Steel Toe transformed into his rock form and hoisted the unconscious Captain Mayhem over his shoulder. The young woman stood behind him and pressed the button on Capt's teleporter and before anyone realized it they were gone. Those who remained spoke to Astro Glider and soon a hunting party was formed and headed toward Hollows to find Frost Fire.

"What the... Cap!" Pluto yelled as he saw the three heroes enter the base of the PoC. He jumped off the couch as Jessinator popped up from a decent dream (at least decent compared to the ones everyone had been having lately) and slowly took in the scene.

"What the hell happened to him?" Pluto asked while checking out the new coal colored skin of his young group leader.

"Frost Fire..." Steel Toe replied. "He was frozen solid and we thought he was dead, but we broke him out and he was screaming real bad."

Jess and Pluto looked at each other and Jess quickly let them know what was going on. "It's the headaches, those dreams do something to him... he hasn't been right for a few days..."

Pluto walked around while thinking quickly and remembered something. He ran to the base's office room and dialed up the number he was given, in a few minutes he came running back while the others were trying to figure out what to do with him.

"I just remembered that if anything happened to him we were supposed to get in touch with a doctor at G.I.F.T., I already called and he's gonna meet us there... either of you fly or anything?" They all looked at each other, each face saying "No" in their own little way. "Fine, I've got it... I'm gonna take him and when I know what's going on I'll call you back here... we need you to stay in case someone tries to get in touch with us Jess."

"Gotcha!" She said in her usual perky manner, so much so that it seemed as if the current situation didn't bother her.

"Well I want to go too!" The young woman chirped in, in a squeaky, half hurt voice.

"I can't carry both of you, meet us there." And with that he was gone.

Pluto Power touched down in Atlas Park a few dozen yards in front of City Hall. "Cool" he thought to himself, "not far to go from here. But this guy is heavier than he looks." Pluto sprung off the ground and once in the air flung Cap around his shoulders, flying towards City Hall. Upon entering several Longbow met with the two and quickly headed for G.I.F.T. where a medical team was standing by. Cap's skin was starting to readjust to normal temperatures and was now a shade of light blue. For paragon City this isn't a rare sight, but some of the doctors knew him and were shocked to see him this way.

"What happened?" The Senior Doctor asked Pluto as they laid him in a bed and started to cut open his shirt.

"Umm I'm not completely sure but he was frozen." Pluto responded as the doctor slightly glanced up with a puzzled look while cutting open Cap's shirt. A heart monitor and I.V. drip were quickly attached to the sleeping hero as Pluto walked out leaving him in their hands. Not totally sure what to do he sat down on a bench in the hallway to G.I.F.T. And watched as dozens of heroes walked past while going to the other hero branches in City Hall.

After about ten minutes Steel Toe, Jess, and the telepath showed up with Unrial by their sides. The short illusionist (Unrial) took off his helmet as he approached Pluto and had a genuine look of concern on his face. "How's our boy doing?" Unrial asked as they all huddled around him while he just look into the G.I.F.T. Office.

"Not sure... after I got him in there I had to leave, but you know Cap he'll spring right back!" Pluto wasn't really sure if what he said was true between the being frozen and the weird stuff that's been going on but he hoped it was. Un just stood there with a serious look on his face before pacing back and forth, but never going past the bench Pluto sat on.

With Cap semi out of commission and Siro M.I.A. Unrial was sort of forced into the leader position although nothing was official. It was he who managed the search for the cause of Cap's problem, their part of it anyway, it was also Un who decided someone should stick by Cap at all times... although he convinced Pluto and Jess not to feel guilty.

The female telepath went in G.I.F.T. headquarters and got as close to the medical facilities as she could. Through the glass she could see that they had heating pads on various parts of Cap's body while using all kinds of weird machines on him. She closed her eyes and tried to pick up any stray thoughts but couldn't find anything worth noting. Finally getting frustrated she dove directly into Cap's mind and was able to make contact with him this time. He seemed to be in a peaceful dream... just sitting in a chair somewhere, staring off into space. "C...Captain you there?"

He groggily turned his head toward her and with a serene look on his face, smiled. "What's up... I know you?"

He looked closely... not a very big girl... cute though, with purple hair and she seemed to be familiar with him. Her eyes seemed kind as she moved closer to him and sat down. Then finally he noticed that everything around him was missing. The two of them were sitting in empty space, there was no light, and no shadows they just were.

"What the hell... am I dreaming?" He asked as he stood up. Their surroundings turned red...ish as she tried to calm him down.

"Relax... you are dreaming... my name is Trinity, I met you in Skyway City. What do you remember about today?" Cap looked at her and suddenly found himself sitting in a comfortable couch.

"This dream stuff could get interesting", he thought to himself. "Ummm today?"

Not being a stranger to talking to people in their dreams she knew she had to be careful. Psychically finding his memories she slowly began to lead him through the events of the day.

"You weren't feeling very well today... you had bad dreams...remember?" He thought for a second and could vaguely remember something like that. After Cap nodded his head she continued "You wanted some fresh air so you went outside... to Skyway City... remember?" The image was slowly forming for him and pictures of Skyway started to surround them. "But then something happened and...

"I ran into some Outcasts... I was about to catch one... when..."

She could feel the psychic tremble the memory was causing and quickly blocked it out... but it felt weird... "YOU WERE FROZEN BY FROSTFIRE REMEMBER? YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP!"

With a gasp Cap's eyes opened... but just as quickly he was clenching his teeth from the pain in his head. "Get some ibuprofen in there... but be careful with the dosage... his body will fight it off." the Senior Doctor yelled out as people started scrambling. It was weird... as soon as he regained consciousness his skin regained it's usual color. Trinity ran out into the hall where everyone was looking bored.

"Cap's up!" she yelled out.

"Cool!" Steel Toe said as he stood up followed by the rest of the heroes in attendance. But no sooner than they approached the entrance to G.I.F.T. did a bare chested Captain Mayhem come walking out with his I.V. still attached. Unrial laughed as Cap looked at them with an aloof look on his face. He was unsure why everyone looked as if they'd seen a ghost, at the same time he held the door to the operating room closed and the doctors and nurses were behind it yelling at him.

"Umm, could you guys clear some room? I'm gonna make a quick break for it... meet me at the base." The hallway cleared and he took off flying... with better control than he'd ever shown before. Unrial was mildly impressed while Jessinator tried to race him to the exit, but a new hero coming down a flight of steps caused her to slow down and run lightly into a wall.

"Damn!" she yelled out as she quickly lost sight of Cap.

"Well what're you gonna do?" Pluto Power asked Trinity.

She thought for a few minutes, then sighed heavily, "I'm really tired... think I'm going to go crash for a while... but I really want to talk to Cap. She reached for Pluto's teleport beacon and messed around with it a little. "This is the frequency for my base, tell him when he has time to drop by."

Pluto nodded and quickly raced to catch up to Unrial and Jessinator. "Guess I'm going to join the hunt!" Steel Toe said enthusiastically. And with a flash he had teleported out.

"Bah, while I'm here I might as well stop by D.A.T.A. for a teleporter and jump pack." Trinity thought to herself. Seeing the abilities of Cap and the rest gave her the travel power envies.

Meanwhile our favorite hero was just stepping out of a _**hot**_ shower. "Man... I always find the best way to get myself in trouble huh?" Cap thought to himself.

"Yeah, but at least you always get better" a voice thought back to him.

"What the hell!" Captain Mayhem spoke out loud while looking up at the ceiling. "Your thoughts aren't supposed to think back at you." he thought once again.

"It's me, Trinity, for some reason we have a link... I can't completely break the bond with your mind." Cap started to get uncomfortable and thanks to the link Trinity could feel it, but quickly calmed him down. "Don't worry, I doubt it's very permanent but it might not be a bad thing."

The now confused super hero suddenly got a warm feeling all over and felt somewhat comforted. "Wait, so you were watching me just now?"

He could feel Trinity giggle and was starting to get used to the feeling of having her in his head, "No, I'm asleep so to me it just looked like I was walking on the ocean, I could see your body flickering in and out but nothing that would embarrass you." Cap sighed as he dried and started to think.

"Hmm, that's interesting." Trinity said, referring to the thought he was having. "So even when you were normal you would have abnormal reactions to telepaths... might have something to do with why you're getting those headaches."

"Yeah, it just might." Cap thought as he started to pull on his tights.

"Ooh, no underwear under the costume... interesting." Trinity said as she laughed.

"If you were really a telepath you'd know I was just doing this until I could get to some clean clothes." Cap retorted.

"Yeah, I know that's a lie." she said in a humorous tone. "Anyway I think the cause of the nightmares in town is telepathic... in fact I'm sure of it... someone is in deep, deep pain."

"Hey, this isn't dangerous is it?" Cap said referring to the strange feeling he was getting in his head.

"Oh, wow I didn't even notice that... looks like we were getting a little too close." Suddenly the feeling started to reverse and Trinity's voice got farther away in his head. "Our minds were starting to merge... I guess dirty thoughts are off limits while we're linked like this."

Both heroes started to laugh, but then Cap bumped into Unrial in the hallway whom was looking at him weirdly.

"You okay Cap?" Unrial said with a worried look on his face... but something told Cap that it wasn't out of concern for the fact that Cap had just recovered from a near fatal attack for any other person, or the fact that he walked out of the hospital, it was the fact that he was walking down the hallway talking to himself and laughing.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." the seemingly semi-telepathic Cap said. "It's Trinity, we're having a conversation."

Unrial felt relieved and started to look serious. "I came back to the base because we made a breakthrough in the case. One of the groups we were working with has a connection to the Phalanx and they had their mystics check into this." Captain Mayhem started to get interested and felt the link with Trinity lessening. "It seems that we should be able to find some information with Crey Industries and a few of the guys weren't surprised, they get into all kinds of under the table stuff."

Crey Industries, supposedly a pharmaceutical company, they appear to be completely legit on the outside. They even provide the city with a form of law enforcement with their armored security force. But many believe them to be in all kinds of biological experimentation including gene-splicing and cloning.

"So, anyone heading out there?" Cap asked while stretching out and flexing his muscles, they were feeling a little weird lately.

"Yeah, we're putting together a team right now, I figured you'd want to be a part of it since you're one of the heavily affected few."

"Half of the heroes in the city have to be on this case..." Cap thought to himself. "I would like to but I think I want to rest a bit... something about being frozen... my body feels a little stiff."

Unrial nodded and started to take off. "Oh, Pluto and Jess are coming with me so..."

Knowing what Un was thinking Cap quickly cut him off. "No problem, I'm sure Trinity will be watching me..." Unrial got a weird feeling but shrugged it off, figuring it was immaturity and quickly disappeared thanks to his teleporter.

"Man I miss that apartment some times." Cap thought to himself as he laid on the small bed in the small room, in their medium sized base. He quickly passed into a dream without even noticing and Trinity stood over him.

"Then go back there!" she said, surprising herself by not startling Cap.

"I knew you were there." he said, starting to get comfortable with this new, if only temporary ability. "I don't know how you telepaths don't go crazy, always having someone else's thoughts going through your head."

"Well this is far from normal for me." Trinity replied as she suddenly appeared sitting on the bed next to him. "I've had complete control of my powers since I was eleven, I hardly ever catch stray thoughts anymore... and I definitely don't have weird men appearing in my dreams... at least without an invitation."

Just as the two of them started getting comfortable they could each feel a weird psychic ripple. "What's that?" Cap asked, thinking that she was thinking it.

Trinity focused for a second and quickly woke up in her room. "Cap!" She proclaimed as she sat up in her bed.

Meanwhile in dream-land Captain Mayhem found himself lying in bed alone. "Hmm, that's weird." he thought to himself, but soon after he felt a strong presence, a strong and angry presence. A small body began to materialize near him, a male body... and young. Behind the boy was a woman, slightly taller and much older, she seemed to be telling the boy something. Cap squinted his eyes and tried to catch what she was saying and quickly found both people looking at him.

This made him slightly uncomfortable but they seemed to be at peace, barely acknowledging his presence. The woman was whispering in the boys ear and the boy seemed to just be standing there like a mannequin... Cap got out of the bed and found himself walking on the floor of an old mansion. The ceiling had holes in it and rain was pouring down onto the floor. The woman and boy started to hover backward in air towards two separate points but her mouth never left his ear.

Cap could feel their presence getting stronger with each step he took but still couldn't make out what she was telling the boy. Suddenly the two were laying on what appeared to be operating table and the woman had tears coming from her eyes. Cap could feel what he'd always feel just before the headaches started and his own eyes started to water. Soon he found himself clinching his head in the bed, back in the base of his super group, his body in total agony.

He struggled to maintain normal breathing and tears were streaming from his eyes. Trinity suddenly appeared in the PoC's base and quickly headed for the room Cap was resting in as if she was familiar with their layout. And as she opened the door there he was, thrashing on the bed and screaming "kill... Kill... KILL... KILL HIM!!!!"

* * *

(Author's note: Sorry for taking so long to post this... it's been mostly done for a few months now I just couldn't figure out a way to end it... well I hope I did okay. My biggest problem was the Trinity character because up until now every hero that had a name was based off a person I met in the game, so developing her character was a bitch, and I didn't want to make her Cap's love slave so... Anyways on a low note I have canceled my subscription to CoX, but on a good note I still have plenty of ideas for stories so as long as I can keep it up I'll be posting them here. Please don't forget to rate this because I seem to have more motivation when I'm being commented on, whether it be good or bad."


	9. Episode 9: Unborn Victim

Captain Mayhem and the Preventors of Carnage

Episode 9: Unborn Victim

* * *

Trinity looked upon Captain Mayhem not sure how to react and panicked slightly, eventually she did all she knew to do and used her powers to dive into his mind. While closing her eyes she focused completely on her new friend whom was slowly walking toward her menacingly. Finally she reached his mind but was instantly and forcefully thrown out, her body flung back several feet from the sheer force. Tears formed in her eyes as she looked up, but she couldn't get the image she had just seen out of her mind. It was a boy and a woman, both covered in a dark aura and laughing threateningly.

"I don't know what the hell is going on but I won't let you have him!" Trinity thought to herself as folded her legs and concentrated as hard as she could, building up her mental energy. Captain Mayhem slowly closed the distance between them. Trinity could feel his presence and managed to maintain her composure as the distance between them became less and less. "I hope this works!" she said out loud as she dove back into Cap's mind, this time however at the point of entry she released all of her gathered energy and forced the intruder out of his mind. At that instant Cap's body went limp and he fell to the floor, Trinity slumped over where she sat and tears came down her eyes as she sighed in relief.

Elsewhere Unrial, Jessinator, Pluto Power, Krome Dome, and a team of other heroes were sneaking into a hidden laboratory funded by Crey Industries. "Man, I'm so glad I performed maintenance on this suit yesterday." Unrial thought to himself as he looked at the army of Crey Voltaic Tanks and and Juggernaut guarding the building. It was his invisibility generator that was protecting the team of heroes as they searched the building for clues as to why the city was having nightmares. Jessinator seemed extremely disappointed and reminded herself not to attack.

"So many guys here... man, I could fry them all... or maybe just one..."

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Sister Psyche was overseeing this mission as the representative of the Freedom Phalanx. Considering that most of the city was being affected it was no surprise to anyone that they'd want to be involved with what was going on. "Those guys in the black and yellow suits are powered by electricity and use it themselves, you'd just let everyone know that we're here." The thoughts were being sent directly into Jess's mind and kind of killed her buzz.

Back at the headquarters for the Preventors of Carnage, Trinity was finally catching her second wind, and as she lifted her head she felt enlightened. "John Benders, genetics department, Crey Industries." She didn't know how she knew that but she was positive that it'd help. She moved her head from side to side looking around the base, not exactly knowing what she was searching for. Suddenly she had another epiphany, "Sister Psyche". It was an easy enough person to find telepathically, everyone knew her and she was an extremely powerful telepath.

"Oh well, here goes!" she said to herself as she searched her mind for Sister Psyche.

Sister Psyche had to quickly regain her balance as she stumbled due to the interference in her mind. She sensed that it wasn't harmful but trying to concentrate on her surroundings was trying enough. "We have to get to a supervisor's office." she spoke telepathically to her team mates. Unrial nodded his head and they all moved along quietly.

Captain Mayhem was slowly regaining consciousness and looked over to Trinity whom was leaning against a wall looking pretty tired out. His own body felt heavy and his head throbbed but he couldn't feel his connection to Trinity anymore. "You okay?" he asked as she snapped out of her daydream.

"Yeah." she said as she slowly nodded. Trinity hadn't previously noticed that the link between them had been broken, but now that she had she felt sad. "Well, looks like you're all alone again." She forced a smile onto her face as she said it, and as Cap nodded his face seemed to clear up but she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"I don't know what happened but I have a serious headache... and I feel a little off balance... like everything is 3 inches to the left and right at the same time." Trinity was puzzled at first but she quickly realized what was wrong.

"It's your eye." she stated with a giggle.

"Hmm, weird." Captain Mayhem thought to himself. It usually opened, closed and blinked with the other two but for some reason his third eye was closed shut. He reached up and rubbed his forehead and suddenly it opened up. Trinity could feel the link re-establishing itself and didn't try to fight it.

"Much better." she thought to herself.

Cap noticed that she was relieved, and he didn't seem to mind. His link with her meant that the last attack didn't do too much permanent damage to his mind and he quickly found himself in another dream.

"Something about you makes me let my guard down." Trinity said as the two sat once again in an empty room in Cap's mind.

"Don't make too much noise, we don't want the other guards to notice!" Echo, a hero helping the team stated just before blowing a hole in a wall using sonic vibrations.

"What the hell do you call that?" Porcupine asked as Echo responded with a grin.

"The frequency is too high to be heard from more than 9 feet away." Steel Toe watched while sitting on one of the security guards. It was the first time he'd been a big coordinated mission and he couldn't help but be excited over everything that was going on.

"What exactly am I looking for?" Unrial asked as he quickly worked his way through Crey databases. Luckily for the team he had worked for them for a short period of time and was very familiar with their security and personnel files.

"John Benders." As soon as Sister Psyche told him the words were typed into the computer.

"Hmm, nothing interesting yet..." There seemed to be dozens of projects this guy had worked on and so far nothing seemed suspicious, until... "Heh, this link here was done in red, there's always something interesting in a red link."

Unrial clicked the link and it brought up a project in cloning, supervised by a Doctor Briskly. Unrial and Sister Psyche read the whole file as the others stood watch but didn't see anything too suspicious.

"Dr. Briskly... I know that name... I think he works with gene splicing and human mutations." Sister Psyche stated.

"Don't get discouraged yet, I didn't tell you the secret of red links yet..." Unrial held down the ctrl and F keys and typed in the words Alphonse van Dorn. Suddenly the window changed to a picture of an abandoned house and pictures of two corpses, a very young child and a woman. Both Unrial and Sister Psyche's eyes widened with horror as they read the file.

Captain Mayhem and Trinity both seemed comfortable as they floated in what resembled water while staring at countless stars.

"Does the sky really look like that?" Captain Mayhem asked.

"No clue, it's pretty thought isn't it?" Trinity asked as she got closer to and wrapped Capt's arm around her.

"I've always lived in a city with bright lights at night so I've never been able to see the stars they way you're supposed to... it's amazing."

They two of them seemed very comfortable when suddenly Sister Psyche's face appeared where the stars were. Capt was caught off guard and suddenly the water turned into hard concrete and they both fell hard onto it.

"Sorry if I disturbed you!" Sister Psyche said with an embarrassed look. "I got the name you sent me and we looked it up, I'm going to transmit the knowledge to you, we could use all the help we could get."

Captain Mayhem found himself laying against the wall in the base with Trinity lying not far from him. He felt a strange feeling in his head and then his eyes widened. Everything that was being told to Trinity was seeping into his consciousness and Capt didn't like what he learned.

It seems that 15 years ago experiments were being conducted outside of Paragon City which were looking for a way to create soldiers with super powers. The head of this research was a scientist who would come to be known as Dr. Atom due to his twisted experiments in gene splicing and radiation. After much hard work it seemed that he became frustrated and used his own wife and unborn child in his experiments, causing both to die.

However the wife of Dr. Atom was a mid level telepath, and upon her death she locked herself and her son in a mental shield was was contained in his mind and kept pieces of their consciousnesses attached to his body. Due to this even after being buried the child continued to grow at a very slow rate and people near the grave site would report hearing a child crying, or having dreams much like the ones everyone in Paragon was currently suffering through.

After looking into it Crey Industries found out that the body of the child was animate, and the psyche of the mother was partially controlling. What makes matters worse was that the mother was completely focused on getting revenge by killing her former husband. After exhuming the corpse of Steven Briskly it was discovered that the baby, though killed at birth now appeared to be at least nine years old... and it would move slightly.

Crey Industries locked it away in a lab and started performing tests, and in the process the body gained awareness. Driven by the mothers rage and the child's lack of comprehension of the world it struck out against everyone in the lab, killing or disabling most of the workers with blasts of energy of psychic attacks. And it seemed that it was now somewhere in Paragon City.

"So that's what has been bothering so many people!" Trinity stated as Capt tried to take it all in. Flashes of what happened to the mother and child were still going through his mind and Trinity had to snap him out of it. "They're going to have to disable the body... he's in Independence Port, we need to move."

Capt nodded as he slowly got up and walked into his room. He was wearing street clothes but took his spare teleport beacon out of a drawer and walked back into the hallway to meet Trinity. In a flash they were standing in Independence Port, however there was no one there.

"Anyone in this area needs to get out now!" Capt and Trinity both heard in their heads. "Independence Port is extremely dangerous, please find somewhere to spend the day and soon everything will be back to normal." Sister Psyche was projecting that to everyone in the area and was being assisted by the war walls. Because they blocked psychic energy she didn't have to hold back and wouldn't enter the mind of someone that was outside of the area.

"Looks like we're in the right place." Trinity said with a smile.

"Yeah, right." Cap noted sarcastically. He grabbed her by the waist and Trinity blushed, and soon the were both 100 feet above the ground. She lost her breath when she first realized how high they were and received a smile from Captain Mayhem in reply.

"First time huh?"

"Shut up, you caught me off guard that's all." She realized that he was looking for everyone else and started to search herself, but they were aided by an explosion about two miles south.

"Damn, IP is too big, I'm going to have to go fast!" Captain Mayhem said anxiously prompting a nervous nod from trinity. He didn't know why but for some reason since that fight with Frost Fire, Capt had perfect control over his flying abilities. It was strange but he found it to be fun at the same time, just too bad that he had to hold back with Trinity here.

She held on to his arm tightly and bit her lip as they sped over the open waters of Independence Port. They spotted a few people running to the green line terminal as sounds of explosions and even a few yells could be heard from the battle site.

"We're getting close." Captain Mayhem told his nervous passenger, unfortunately for them they still had a way to go.

Echo had tried using a sonic blast to knock the small enemy away from the team, but the psychic attacks were too much and his powers were hard to control. "Don't leave the barrier!" Sister Psyche commanded as she tried to keep her team safe from physical attacks. She and Krome Dome were working in tandem to keep the team from being vulnerable to Steven's attacks.

"Damn, this is hard work, this guy hits too hard!" Krome Dome said as his energy barrier fluttered a little.

"We need you to keep this up until we can find a safe way to attack!" Sister pleaded with him prompting an exhausted nod from Krome.

"Yeah, no problem." He lied as he went through dozens of worse case scenarios in his mind. In the distance he spotted a red and blue spot high in the air with a little bit of purple dangling from it. "What the hell?" he thought to himself before getting Unrial to notice.

Using the microscope vision of his helmet the small hero quickly discovered what was going on. "It's Cap and Trinity."

"You're shitting me, Cap can't fly that good!" Krome said, prompting laughs from everyone around.

"Apparently he can doofus" A'kasha responded before coming to a conclusion of her own... "But if we can't get close to that kid because of the psychic energy... what's it going to do to Cap?" Several members of the team familiar with Cap were suddenly concerned for Trinity and eyes were wide open.

"I don't get it." One member said while looking at his horrified partner.

"Cap's going to get within striking range and he's gonna go crazy... he's one of the heroes..."

"Oh shit!" Astro Glider said cutting off Unrial, and in an instant he was out of the barrier.

"I see them over there..." Trinity said as she felt sweat coming off of Cap's arms. "Hey... you okay?" She said while looking up at a suddenly less than energetic Captain Mayhem. She hadn't noticed due to her own fear of flying but "that" feeling was slowly creeping up on him. "No... you can't you have to fight it." Trinity cried out as the realization of what could happen at any moment dawned upon her.

"CAP!" She she screamed out as they quickly started losing altitude and she fell out of his arms. Suddenly she found herself free falling from hundreds of feet in the air but for some reason it didn't bother her... Captain Mayhem was falling much faster and her only concern at the time was him.

"Oh no, I've got to do something... I've got to do something..." She thought to herself as watched with her heartbeat getting faster and faster as Capt got closer to the surface of the water. Then there was a tug and Trinity found herself in the arms of Astro Glider, but felt no relief as she heard a loud splash and felt her heart sink into her stomach.

"You okay?" Astro Glider asked as he raced back to the barriers.

"Huh? What are you doing we have to go get him!" she said in a frantic tone of voice as her face seemed expressionless. Astro knew that they had to do something but he couldn't risk being out of the barrier too long, the force was too strong.

He landed behind Unrial and looked him in the eyes before finding himself unable to look Cap's teammates eye to eye.

"You okay?" Unrial said directed at Trinity, however she was fighting to break free of A-G's grasp before finding herself being held by Steel Toe.

"We have to go save him... we have to!", was all that she could manage as they fought to bring her under control.

"Trinity, was he wearing his mask?" A'kasha asked in a clam voice.

"Yeah, but he fell and..", she was cut off by Krome Dome. "As long as he has his mask on he can't drown, don't worry about Cap, that fall won't kill him." Trinity still wasn't calmed.

"But the headaches... he's down there suffering, we have to help him...", then suddenly she remembered. "Your eye, close your eye... the eye, close your eye." she repeated in her head over and over.

"Okay, I'm going to go get him" Astro Glider said as he quickly disappeared once again. "Damn, why am I always trying to be the hero?"

Meanwhile, somewhere in the waters of Independence Port, Captain Mayhem was writhing in pain. None of the headaches had been like this and on top of that he was falling deeper and deeper into the water. Unable to even think all Cap could do was clutch his head and scream into his rebreather. Somewhere deep in his subconscious he was glad that he was told to wear that thing at all times, cause right now it was saving his life.

Astro Glider dove into the water as fast as he could, and found it easier to think down here. "Damn, salt water." he thought as he struggled to see. "Cap's really going to owe me, this shit rusts metal, damn they're going to charge me a lot at Icon..." He looked around and couldn't spot Capt anywhere. Bubbles were coming from somewhere below him and about 100 feet below him he could spot Captain Mayhem wiggling and falling at the same time. "Damn, gotta move!" he thought as he hit the thrusters and quickly plowed his way through the water and grabbed the troubled hero.

A-G had one hand around Cap's waste and another covering his head as they flew out of the water and toward the barrier. "I hope this suit gives you a little protection man." Astro thought as they got closer to shelter. Once arriving Krome Dome wasted no time diverting some of his energy toward healing Cap. His skin was bruised from the fall and he probably had internal bleeding, but everyone knew he'd recover quick.

"How is he?" Unrial asked as he conjured up a shield of his own. Between Krome and the new shield they were completely protected from the energy attacks for a while.

"Hard to tell, but the screams haven't stopped, I could even hear it under water."

"Yeah, they usually don't, we need a stronger psychic barrier." Unrial replied.

"Hey, I'm doing the best I can!" Sister Psyche said with a slight grin... Trinity, can you help me a bit...? Trinity?

"Huh, oh, yeah." Trinity said as she snapped out of her trance and started diverting her own energy to Sister Psyche. Quickly, the screams stopped. Cheers erupted within the barrier but it only cause Echo to seem angry.

"What the hell are you cheering for? We can't do anything, yeah we're protected but how long until they get tired? The best we could do right now is get the hell out of here, and that sucks." The cheers all died and Captain Mayhem slowly started to wake up.

"Ow, my head." He stated as he sat up from his position on the ground. "Krome you can kill the mojo now." He said as he felt the familiar air of Krome's healing powers. "Trinity okay?" he asked as he looked around the small bubble which served as their shelter.

"Yeah, she's helping Sister Psyche with the psychic barrier, how are you feeling?" Unrial asked.

"Like I just fell out of the sky..." Cap said as he finally got a good look at his attacker. "That him?" he said as a feeling of sadness wrapped around him.

"Yeah, thats that kid... we almost don't want to take him out."

A'kasha said.

"Not like we could if we wanted to right now." Sister Psyche said.

Captain Mayhem stood there with his eyes fixed on this monster. He stood no more than four feet, five inches high and was as skinny as humanly possible. Part of his face has a metal plate over it and some of his skin was hanging from the meat in various places of his body. In areas of his forearm and thigh the bone was clearly visible and it all struck Capt as a tragedy.

"This is the thing causing all the problems huh?" he said as he prepared to put on a good hero face for the others in attendance. "Well, what do I have to do to end this?"

"If it were that simple it would be over with already," Echo stated agitatedly, "We can't get close enough to him to hurt him, and when we leave the barrier we lose control of our powers." Captain Mayhem wasn't sure if Echo was familiar with him so he quickly displayed his powers.

"It's hard to lose control of these." He said as he slid his claws out of their hiding places between his knuckles. "So why can't we get close?"

"You should know that better than anyone." Unrial said. "Those pyschic attacks paralyze anyone who gets close, even Sister has trouble, this is the closest she could get us.

"Okay, what if Steel Toe throws me? I could do a little boost with my flying and get there in no time, and with enough force to take his head off."

"It sounds good.." Unrial replied, "but halfway there you'll lose control."

Cap nodded and slowly started analyzing the team members and their powers, but his train of thought was cut off Trinity.

"Close your eye Cap..." he didn't know what she was talking about at first but then it popped into his head... he blamed the telepathic.

"You sure that will work?" He asked as everyone else looked on confused.

"Trust me Fishbait." she said almost randomly.

"Damn, she must be channeling Siro or somebody..." He said as he approached Steel Toe.

"You ready Cap-i-tan?" Steel asked as he transformed back into his rocky mode.

"Yeah, let's get this over with." Cap said reluctantly. Telepathically Trinity could feel the hesitation and for a little while so could Sister Psyche. Sister looked over empathetically at Trinity as Trinity stared sympathetically at Cap, and mass headaches ensued.

"Damn! The barrier!" Sister Psyche thought to herself as she returned to her normal state of mind and sealed out the psychic attacks.

"Well, at least now I know it works." Cap said as he stood, being the only person not to fall to their knees besides Krome Dome, whom seemed immune to all telepathic powers. "I'll be able to handle this on my own Steel, thanks for the help though." And with that Cap took to the air.

He hovered in the air for a few moments staring upon his target, amazed that closing that damn eye was all he had to do to stop the pain. "Well buddy, it's been fun." Cap thought to himself as he took off flying toward the young zombie, whom had a constant stream of energy fixed on Krome Dome's barrier. "That looks like fun." Cap though to himself as he avoided a blast meant for him with a well timed aerial maneuver.

His target wouldn't stop however and turned his full attention to Cap who dodged his attacks gracefully. However as soon as the barrier came down Echo wasted no time in firing off a blast that made the assailant stumble, much to the disapproval of Captain Mayhem. Deciding to finally end this quickly Captain Mayhem said a silent apology that echoed telepathically through all of the heroes in attendance, and all felt how he felt; some without even knowing.

Tears fell from the ground from several of them as Cap impaled his young target with his left hand and decapitated him with the right and quickly flew away from the scene.

Some of those who didn't know stated that the feelings must have come from the monster just before it died, some said that it came from one from one of the telepaths that must have had sympathy for the little boy and his mother. But Sister Psyche knew what really happened and upon being asked for a name for the monster by a television reporter she glared upon him with contempt and replied, "Unborn Victim".

* * *

Writer's Notes: So, that's the end of my first major story arc... let's see, 3 chapters long... not bad huh? Things start to change for Captain Mayhem from this moment on, will he ever be able to recover from killing this innocent child? Also I have to apologize for the whole fight scene... lol there was none! It's hard to believe that a dude would stand there for like a half hour shooting an energy beam at a shield, but I hope it was believable... I promise no more lame battles. Also this is another first draft, I'm pushing them out faster than I can get them edited again... but I hope the quality of the story makes up for grammatical errors. Thank You! 


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